One For The Money, Two For The Show
by pochapal
Summary: "Even if Mom and Dad are full of shit, they're right on one thing: the art world is a pit of vipers. The only way to survive and thrive is to play to win and use every advantage you can get. Even if said advantage is the jumped-up son of the richest family in town." An exploration of the tentative and complicated relationship between Victoria and Nathan.
1. Jane Doe

You know, something has to be said about the feeling of sitting on your bed with the haze of weed in the air and a walking wallet resting his head in your lap.

Actually, a fucking lot can be said about this moment.

If I was a different kind of person, I might have deemed this scene photo-worthy.

"C'mon, Vic," Nathan says languidly with a doped-up grin on his face. "You can't space out after one hit. It's not allowed."

"I'm a photographer at an art school," I retaliate. "Pretty sure that gives me a free pass for pretentious space-outs."

"Oh?" A shit-eating grin spreads across his lips. "Should I start calling you Max Caulfield, too?"

"Shut the fuck up, Prescott."

Nathan laughs at that, but I'm certain that if he wasn't stoned to hell, the reaction would be different entirely. _Way to watch your step, Victoria._

Of course, things could equally go to shit if he ever finds out I'm only close to him for his family name. Even the runt of the litter has connections, right?

Even if Mom and Dad are full of shit, they're right on one thing: the art world is a pit of vipers. The only way to survive and thrive is to play to win and use every advantage you can get. Even if said advantage is the jumped-up son of the richest family in town with a probable psychological problem.

Nobody ever said gambling was safe.

I reach over to the bowl and take a few tokes of the joint to appease Nathan. He seems to relax as the smoke blows out my mouth.

It's enough for a good buzz. Not quite enough to get high. It would probably be an incredibly stupid idea to lose myself when alone with Nathan Prescott.

"That's the spirit," Nathan says, helping himself to a portion of the weed that can't possibly be healthy. "It's no good when you're sober. What's the fucking point of that?" _Quite a lot, actually._

I keep quiet.

We remain still for a few moments; enough for me to look over to my window and see the dust suspended in the light filtering through the curtains. It's all such hipster crap that half these Blackwell wannabes get hooked up on.

It's not until there's a banging against the wall that the scene is disturbed.

"Oh shit," I say, crushing the joint in the bowl. Nathan is still fumbling around with his by the time I've moved across the room, applied some more perfume, placed a piece of mint gum in my mouth, and opened the window.

"We gotta get this out of sight." Even as a Prescott, there's no way that being in the girls' dorm with a bowl of weed won't go without some kind of repercussion, minor as it is. I've never seen a puppet as sad as Principal Wells.

"Just put it under the bed," I say. Nathan scrambles to shove the bowl under the bed as I fix myself up in the mirror. _Shit. There's no way he didn't spill that all over._

If I have to wash my bedsheets _again_ , I swear to God not even Nathan's money and reputation will help him.

"Fuck," Nathan utters, standing to his feet again. For a guy that supposedly owns the school, he sure does get jumpy and incompetent at the first sign of authority.

"Just—go stand by my closet. I'll go check it out," I say. "And don't touch anything, all right? You're paying for the dry-cleaning if you do."

"Whatever. I'll just buy you a new wardrobe," Nathan says as he crosses the room with jittery movements. Jesus.

I open my door and take a step out into the hallway. "Okay, who thought it would be a good idea to—what the fuck are you doing in this dorm?"

It's some punk girl – tattoos, beanie, blue hair. She's standing by my slate, staple gun in one hand and a stack of paper in the other. I glance at the wall and want to throw up.

Yet another missing poster for Rachel Amber.

"Door wasn't locked," she replies evenly. I can't help but stare at her, open-mouthed. "Besides, it's not like I'm some pervert trying to get hella off on creeping on your dorm rooms. I'm literally just putting some posters up."

"Yeah, we get it," I say. "The bitch is missing. Who gives a shit? Now stop polluting the campus with this crap. Nobody even cares."

The girl's face darkens. It's at this point that I recall who she is – that loud bitch who got expelled a few months back. I wasn't at Blackwell long enough to know all the details – just enough to know that Rachel Amber thought herself above literally fucking everyone and this girl was her groupie.

"Fucking say that again," she says. Her entire expression darkens and she takes a step towards me. _Stand your ground. She's not worth your time._

"Nobody at this school gives a fuck about Rachel Amber," I tell her. "So take your pathetic little posters and get lost. I could call security, you know."

"David Madsen? Like that douchebag frightens me." She flips her middle finger at me – no wonder she got expelled – and proceeds to staple another poster to the wall.

"Vic? What's going on?" Nathan calls out, evidently loud enough for our intruder to hear.

"Is that Nathan Prescott in there with you?" she asks. A bewildered look falls on her face. "You must be hella fucking stupid to get close to him. And I'm so not in the mood to deal with that prick. I'm out."

She just drops the posters all over the floor and leaves. I grab one off the wall and tear it in two. _Fuck you, Rachel Amber._

"What was that?" Nathan says.

I retreat back into my room and look at him. "Rachel Amber's groupie," I tell him. "She just decided to throw a pile of missing posters all over the dorm."

"Chloe Price. No fucking way," Nathan says in a disjointed way. Maybe getting high like this wasn't the best idea. "She was expelled."

"Well, evidently that doesn't stop you from coming back to paint the walls with Rachel Amber's face," I say. Irritation ticks away inside me.

"Let's just… let's stop talking about Rachel," Nathan almost whispers, twitching. Maybe he should have let up on the weed before getting worked up like this. "She's not here either."

I blow a bubble that deflates rather than bursts. "We still need to get rid of them," I say. "Before someone like Kate Marsh decides to put them up."

"Yeah… sure." Nathan straightens his jacket with another series of twitches. "Nobody wants to see any more of Rachel Amber, right? Right?"

We end up burning the posters in the parking lot that evening. Nathan doesn't say much.


	2. Butterfly Effect

**[10/04 – 23:21]**

 **VICTORIA: Nathan where the HELL are you?  
VICTORIA: It's been like an hour.  
VICTORIA: Haven't seen Saint Slut either.  
VICTORIA: Taylor thinks you've gone off to sleep w/ her.  
VICTORIA: DUDE.  
VICTORIA: We are fucking wasted at this party and you're nowhere to be found.  
VICTORIA: Not cool, Nate.  
VICTORIA: :(**

* * *

"Nothing?" asks Courtney between hits. The smoke gets caught in the spotlight and creates a pretty cool effect. Not my photography scene, though; too amateur. Plus, who the fuck takes their camera to a party?

"At this rate Taylor might be right," I say over the music. "Nathan actually might have taken Kate to a dark corner to get indecent away from prying eyes."

"He'll have to get in line, though," Courtney giggles. "Seriously, though. That's gotta be the most action Logan's seen in his entire life."

"Yeah," I reply, letting the smile spread over my face. "You took a video too, right?"

"Duh," she says, flashing her phone. Some guy walks past and nearly knocks it out of her hands, though. "Hey!" But the asshole's soon lost to the crowd. _Mental note: find out who he is and get his name removed from the Vortex Club list._

"This'll be fucking priceless," I say. "So much for her abstinence campaign working."

"Like it did in the first place," Courtney retorts. I take a sip of my drink. "I mean, have you heard the noises from Juliet's room at night? I have no idea how she finds the time to write all those shitty articles."

"I try not to."

"Maybe we're pursuing the wrong slut," Courtney says as she makes a not-so-subtle reach for the bong. I pass it to her.

"Nah," I say. "Juliet's too smart to get caught out like Kate. Who the fuck even knows why she was here tonight anyway."

"Even good girls have to be bad sometimes, right?" Courtney smiles mischievously.

"Besides," I tell her. "I've got a better way of fucking Juliet over."

"Oh?"

"Pretty simple," I explain. "Zachary's a dumb shit who can't keep it in his pants. If he happens to get a sext from the rich, hot Victoria Chase… well, the rest is obvious."

Courtney's phone buzzes. "It's Taylor," she says. "She just finished checking the campus. No sign of Churchwhore. Plus, Nathan's truck isn't in the parking lot. Do you really think they…?"

I shake my head. "Nathan's standards aren't that low," I say. "Kate's probably banging some jock in the bathrooms and Nathan probably had a bad trip and had to sleep it off."

"Didn't know Prescotts were such lightweights," Courtney says. "Oh well, more fun for us girls!"

It's at this moment where I can feel a choice weighing down on me. Do I tell Courtney about the meds and the psychiatrist's notes in Nathan's possession? Or do I keep quiet?

Telling the truth would make everything easier; it is probably why he bailed on us. Plus, it would preserve this friendship between me and Courtney, and not damage Nathan's reputation, petty as it is.

But friends are temporary. And exposing the shit going on in Nathan's life would be suicide.

Like there was even a choice to begin with.

"Hell yes," I say. "The night is still young. Why the hell should we let lightweights and sluts ruin our night?"

"I like the way you think, Victoria," Courtney says, and the oscillating colours of the lights capture the plum of her hair and make the hues dance.

Stupidly, I'm making a habit of seeing everything through a viewfinder before seeing with my eyes.

But sometimes it's easier to create that distance. Especially when the guilt makes the thoughts of a rich boy with the psych notes and meds and the seven minute phone-recorded video weigh more than the world.

Sometimes that buffer is essential, no matter how faux-hipster it sounds.

* * *

 **[10/05 – 04:49]**  
 **NATHAN: sorry**  
 **NATHAN: i had some shit come up u know**  
 **NATHAN: youre probably sleeping so i guess u wont read these 4 a while**  
 **NATHAN: ill come see u later**

* * *

I wake at sunrise to puke up cheap chips and potent wine.

Kate Marsh is curled up outside her dorm room, looking bedraggled and _off._

I pretend not to see her and try to forget about the seven minutes of footage on my phone.

* * *

I take a bunch of shitty selfies throughout the afternoon as Courtney and Taylor decide to chronicle their hangovers via SMS. _I told them to avoid whatever shit Hayden brought._

Even though I look like shit, I have to admit the composition is among my best work so far.

A small voice in my mind whispers to me that they bear some similarities to Max Caulfield's photography.

I tear up all but three of them.

* * *

When he finally shows his face, I can tell something is off. Black circles mar his eyes and there's something different about the way he twitches. This isn't just Nathan being jittery after a bad high.

As he wrings his hands, I can't help but feel uncomfortable. Deeply uncomfortable.

So whilst he walks over to my bed, I focus on the way the evening light makes my room look lazy and gold and how the bed has a pleasant warmth to it where the light touches it. It's a weird form of nostalgia, if I had to be pretentious about it.

I move my camera out of the way before Nathan sits on it. He's surprisingly unaware of his surroundings for once.

"Hey," I say. "So, do you care to explain what happened last night?"

He just stares for a moment, uncomprehending. His eyes seem glazed, somewhat. Almost like that dull, glossy quality you see in old photographs. _Is he high?_

He forces himself to blink a few times before he can answer. "Y-yeah," he says. "I went home. No big deal. Was kinda stupid I told nobody, but what the fuck ever. The party carried on, right?"

I reply with a "Yeah," before I realise what's wrong with his statement. Even the bottom feeders of the Vortex Club know what Nathan thinks of his home. His father's a dick; that's all he says, but it's enough to understand that home would be the last place he would go. Hell, sometimes he can't stand to be near his family so much that he just passes out somewhere in Arcadia Bay instead of sleeping in his dorm.

There's a story here, but not one for my ears.

I wait a moment to see if he elaborates. He doesn't.

"Jesus's favourite slut crawled back to her dorm at some point," I tell him. "Taylor found her. Wrote 'will bang for God' on her slate. My idea, of course."

"Huh," Nathan says. He reaches into his jacket and pulls out an unopened bottle of wine.

"We're going to drink?" I ask.

"Things tend to be a lot fucking better when I'm out of it," he says and I know there's more to it. I also know it would be stupid to press.

"Well, sure," I say. "Just let me get some glasses."

In the minute it takes me to grab them from their hiding place of my closet, Nathan's drinking straight from the bottle. It strikes me as such a sad scene; his hair and clothes are dishevelled and his expression seems… pained, somehow.

"Save some for me," I say, sitting down. He lets out a belch that smells clinical as I pour myself a glass. Must be those meds. Is he on more?

"I can't even tell you how shitty everything is right now," Nathan says, seemingly more relaxed as the wine enters his system. It doesn't take him long to disregard his glass, and I'm just grateful for the carpet on the floor.

"Well, hopefully this is less shitty. Right now, I mean," I say. _Don't dig too deep._

"Just… I fucking hate my dad," Nathan says. I purse my lips as he looks at me in what could almost be desperation. "He thinks he can control me like he controls the rest of this fucking town."

I down another mouthful of wine, ignoring how it's going straight to my head. Ignoring how vulnerable I'm making myself. Ignoring everything else but the boy drinking and opening up about things that would never normally leave his mouth.

"He… he beat me the other day," Nathan says. I try to hide my wince. I'd suspected Sean Prescott was an abusive asshole – he has this way of looking at you like you're a piece of shit – but this isn't something I wanted to think about. But it makes too much sense. "Says I'm not fit for my purpose."

"What a dick." It comes out before I even think. My heart stops for a brief second as Nathan parses my words.

"Yeah," he replies. "Everyone has to bend to _his_ will and I'm fucking tired, Vic. He's made me do so much and I..." Nathan pauses to swallow three mouthfuls of wine. "Just… fuck that guy."

And then, the impossible.

Nathan Prescott begins to cry.

It's an ugly affair involving awkward hugs and a shaking Nathan who can't stop uttering "I'm sorry," under his breath.

What I feel for him goes from cautious distance to heartbreak.

The most powerful student at Blackwell is nothing more than a frightened, broken little boy.

And I can't stand it.

"C'mon, Nathan," I say. "You can't cry this early in the evening. Hey." I feel a weight in my pocket and a conflict of emotions.

But in the end, pity wins out over guilt.

"You have to see _exactly_ what Kate did at last night's party."

Much later that night, once the bottle is empty and our heads are light, I make those seven minutes last a lifetime.


	3. Fear and Loathing

I'm in the middle of editing my Everyday Heroes entry when Courtney blows up my phone.

* * *

 **[10/06 – 14:51]**  
 **COURTNEY: OMFG GIRL YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS.**  
 **COURTNEY: NATHAN LITERALLY JUST BOUGHT A CUSTOM DOMAIN FOR KATE'S VID.**  
 **COURTNEY: SPREAD THE WORD.**

* * *

I've never felt so conflicted about laughing that hard.

The photo quickly allows me to lose myself, though.

* * *

We're on the beach, watching the sunset and getting high. Courtney is quietly hogging the bong and Taylor is giggling as she downs countless cans of beer. Hayden and his posse are a little further away from us, crowding around a phone as familiar audio fights to be heard over the waves. A very familiar RV is nestled between our parked cars.

Nobody's seen Kate since yesterday. Even Max Caulfield asked about her.

I told her to stop wasting her time with such a slut. Taylor and Courtney couldn't stop laughing.

Nathan sits beside me, cradling a joint in his hands. I haven't bothered with the drugs much tonight; it's Monday tomorrow, and I don't think Mark Jefferson will appreciate me stinking of weed and other substances on top of not having a photo to hand in yet.

Well, that's a half-truth. I have the image, but it's not ready. It isn't perfect yet.

Everyday Heroes. What a fucking joke of a theme. Just some high school bullshit to make the hipster wannabe photographers like Max Caulfield feel important. In fact, if the judge of the contest didn't have the connections he has, I wouldn't even bother.

Plus, it's hardly even a competition. I am just that much better than everyone else that winning is a foregone conclusion. Unless I don't enter. Or Mark chooses someone else over me.

But that won't happen.

"Man, Victoria, you seem totally serious tonight," Taylor giggles. "Maybe we should get you whatever Kate was on."

"No fucking way," I snap back. "I'd rather be miserable than a whore."

"Although, you have to wonder what kind of shit Kate actually took," Taylor says, trying to sound thoughtful. Unfortunately for her, she slurs a lot when wasted.

"I'm sure Frank can fill you in," I say as a seagull flies overhead. At the same moment, the lighthouse begins to beam its light out to the ocean, framed by a sky the colour of a bruise.

"Who the fuck even knows," Nathan says. He's trying to be light-hearted but agitation cuts through like a blade. Nobody remarks on it. "'Sides. We've got the end of the world to prep for, right?"

"Hell fucking yes," Taylor replies. "What kinda shit are you bringing, Nate?"

His expression is unreadable. "You'll have to wait and see," he says. "The Vortex doesn't expose its secrets until the time is right."

"And you people accuse _me_ of being the pretentious one," I say after a sip of wine. Nathan traces one hand through the sand before letting out a dry, disjointed laugh.

"Now now, children. We don't have time for this." Courtney's suddenly joined the conversation. She stands in front of us with a shit-eating smile on her lips and the bong still in her hands. _At least none of it's going to waste._

"Oh?" Taylor shoots back with a giggle at just the right pitch for me to want to bury my head in the sand.

" _We_ should get down to business," announces Courtney. She's suddenly showing us her phone and pointing to the contact shining out like a nauseating beacon.

"Zachary's new number?" Taylor says with exaggerated surprise. "Watch out, Juliet."

Even I can't help my eyebrows from rising. "No fucking way." A faint smile works its way onto my face. "You stone-cold bitch."

"All for you, of course," Courtney says, bringing up the number for me to copy. The ordeal takes less than a minute. "Don't say I don't love you."

"Heh," Nathan says, and it's a weird blend of an actual laugh and the word. He takes a hit that goes on for just that bit too long. It's such a difference from the fragile creature that found me yesterday.

We all wear masks, but with Nathan, it's impossible to tell where the mask ends and where the face begins. Maybe nobody's ever actually seen his true face. Maybe we're all ensnared in a web of façades.

That doesn't sit well. _I thought I knew the real Nathan Prescott._ If I'm wrong…

I shake my head. Doesn't matter. _You don't care about him. He's a stepping stone to success. Nothing more._

Still, it doesn't stop me from sparing concerned glances in his direction as I fuck over the second person's life in twenty-four hours.

Must be a new record, Chase. Mom and Dad would be so fucking proud.

* * *

When we finally return to Blackwell, Nathan has to take a call and branches away from the rest of the group with haste and unease.

We won't see him again until tomorrow morning.

* * *

There's a heavy, judgemental silence in the air as I etch "Will bang for Jesus" onto the slate next to mine.

It doesn't matter now. We're too deep into this rabbit hole to go back.

* * *

Even Max Caulfield's room is silent as I pass by. Not even the acoustic hum of whatever hipster band she's devoted herself to this week.

Alcohol can bring on paranoia, right?

* * *

My room is kissed by the silvery touch of moonlight when the shriek comes from the hallway.

A rush hits my stomach as I hurry outside to join the rest of the dorm in observing Juliet Watson's melodramatic reaction. _Serves you right for talking shit about the Vortex Club like nobody's business, bitch._

I shouldn't care what so fucking ever, but I can't help but notice how Kate Marsh's absence sticks out like a gaping hole, threatening to swallow everything.

Like a Vortex.


	4. Chrysalis

Monday rolls around too prematurely.

I let the autumn sunlight penetrate my eyes through the curtain as my phone's alarm vibrates beside my bed.

It's not until the rhythm of the vibrations change that I finally remove myself from the sheets.

My heart clenches in my chest as I unlock the phone and silence the alarm.

It's Nathan.

* * *

 **[10/07 – 06:31]**  
 **NATHAN: vic**  
 **NATHAN: shit**  
 **NATHAN: oh fukk i fucced up**  
 **NATHAN: did sum stuupd shit**  
 **NATHAN: im fukin ded**

* * *

I shower and adorn my cashmere sweater with a tight knot in the pit of my stomach.

Nathan never texts me like this. His command of the English language can get pretty questionable when he's loaded on whatever shit Frank has that only a Prescott could afford, but the messages are always detached. Controlled.

This is a plea for help. I feel it deep in my core. Something is wrong.

Overcome by a powerful feeling of pity, I apply the lightest coating of make-up and leave my room.

The Everyday Heroes entry lies nestled underneath a pile of images taken on Friday night. Specifically, between a selfie with Nathan and a blurry image of Kate locking lips with some boy whose name I will never know.

* * *

I'm all but blind to Taylor's latest addition to Kate's slate.

 _Will bang 4 JESUS_ followed by a crude scribble of a steaming pile of shit with a _ha ha ha_ tacked onto the end.

A distant part of my mind wonders how much Kate cares about this.

* * *

It's when I push open the door and hurry up the staircase to the boy's dorms that my brain registers something that is deeply off.

Without fail Kate plays her shitty violin at the break of dawn every single fucking weekday.

Today the halls are silent.

* * *

He sits on the edge of his bed in relative darkness.

But even in the dim light I can see the dismal state of his bedroom.

A poster is torn in two. A lamp is shattered, the fragments spread across the carpet. The couch is overturned.

Oddly enough, my attention focuses on the open boxes of pills on Nathan's dresser and the colourful meds that spill out like candy.

"Shit, Nathan."

All this is before I notice his appearance. I actually have to place my hand to my mouth like some clichéd sappy movie.

There's a red mark on the side of his face and his hair is more dishevelled than I think I've ever seen it. Deep, deep bags encircle his glazed eyes. One hand is clutching his phone for dear life, and the other is defensively placed in front of his crotch. A whimper that is almost silent comes from his lips.

I don't know if I want to cry or run away.

All I can say for certain is that there is more to Nathan Prescott than I will ever know.

It takes a whispered "Fuck" from Nathan's mouth for me to make up my mind.

I sit on the bed next to him, consciously moving a pile of Rachel Amber posters that are half-buried beneath the sheets. He doesn't seem to care as a handful fall to the ground.

"Hey," I begin, feeling horribly tense and upset and wishing this entire situation wasn't happening. "Nate. Talk to me."

Two minutes of silence happen first. Nathan just looks at a point on the wall with distant eyes. I didn't notice it before, but there is a definite tremble as he sits there.

Tears roll down pained cheeks as his mouth opens. "Fuck, I… shit. I fucked up."

"Okay?" I say. "Care to fill a girl in?" There's the distinct feeling that I'm walking on eggshells. Too much curiosity could prove deadly for the both of us.

"I didn't mean to," he says between hitched breaths. "There was the bar and the weed and I don't know and… M… _my dad_ gave me the new meds but I didn't take them and then she…" His words are swallowed up by sobs.

I hesitate on my own words for a moment, torn between wanting to know the truth and telling Nathan what he needs to hear. "I'm not sure what you're on about, but there's no such thing as a fuck-up you can't get out of with the right connections, resources, or money. Things which we have a fuckton of."

"It's..." Nathan says, his voice breaking. "Not that simple. I didn't take the meds and he'll _know_ I fucked up and… _Jesus shit._ "

The movement is so sudden I let out a yelp. Nathan reaches over, grips a Rachel Amber poster, and tears it to shreds. "Your fault," he says to the poster. "Fuck you, Rachel. Fuck you for doing this to me. If you hadn't… _bitch_. _You brought this to us._ "

This is one of those things that I know for a fact Nathan will never spill. Rachel Amber went missing pretty soon after I came to Blackwell, so I didn't know her as well as Nathan did. But if the mere thought of her has driven Nathan to this state, then…

I don't finish the thought. I grab a poster and destroy it myself.

We get through a dozen posters each before Nathan just drops the one in his hands and weeps. I let him lean on my shoulder and soak my cashmere with his tears.

I don't move, letting the distraught, hiccuping sobs stab deep into my being. Pity drives me to wrap an arm around the most dangerous person in Blackwell Academy and not let go until he is pacified and calm and _sane._

The moment he pulls away my phone buzzes. "Probably Taylor or Courtney," I offer softly. "Probably pissed they have to start the Monday morning slutshaming by themselves."

Nathan doesn't seem to register it. "I… I have class," he finally says. He sounds so small and weak and so broken. _Nathan Prescott. What's happening to you?_ "I should… I'm sorry."

"Yeah," I say. "You should probably clean yourself up. Skipping class would just be the icing on this particularly shitty cake." I move to stand up, but Nathan puts a hand on my shoulder. The touch is surprisingly tender, devoid of all the jittery motions that are ingrained into his character at this point.

"Thanks, Vic." I don't think I've ever heard something so sincere come from Nathan Prescott's mouth.

"Don't mention it," I reply as another buzz shatters the silence. "See you soon."

* * *

As I pull open the door and step out into the hallway, I pay no attention to the handgun manual under Nathan's camera.

Nor do I look back. If I do, I fear my heart will break.

And I can't do that. In class, I have an image to maintain.

So instead I don my armour and block out Nathan's snivelling.

* * *

 **[10/07 – 07:25]**  
 **TAYLOR: vic omg where ARE you girl?**  
 **TAYLOR: you missed not-so-virgin mary's slutwalk of shame**  
 **TAYLOR: PLEASE tell me you saw kate's slate at least**  
 **VICTORIA: Sorry, Taylor.**  
 **VICTORIA: I had to go beg my parents for money like a fucking hobo.**  
 **VICTORIA: That's the last time I carry cash when we're near Frank. :/**  
 **TAYLOR: L M A O**  
 **VICTORIA: And yes, I saw.**  
 **VICTORIA: The steam marks on the shit? That's the real everyday hero here. XP**  
 **TAYLOR: glad you liked it vic**  
 **TAYLOR: she should feel shitty for being a viral slut**  
 **VICTORIA: For a Christian she sure had no qualms about breaking that old commandment.**  
 **VICTORIA: You know, "Thou shalt not be a slutty whore"?**  
 **TAYLOR: you're slaying me here vic! ;'D**  
 **TAYLOR: also am i hearing new slate message inspo here?**  
 **TAYLOR: and don't even get me STARTED on juliet omf G**  
 **VICTORIA: Now, now. Save some surprise, okay?**

* * *

One good thing about being an artist is that you have an innate talent for lying.

When your career thrives around making false images believable, false words seem that much easier.

It doesn't need explaining why I tear Rachel Amber's face off the wall and throw it into the trash.

If she managed to reduce Nathan Prescott to a wreck, then the bitch had better stay missing.

Because if I ever see Rachel Amber, I will give her hell.

* * *

Juliet Watson is red with fury as she pounds against Dana's door like a woman possessed. "Dana, I swear to God I will hurt you if you do not open this door!"

Next to me, Taylor whispers, "Dana's at morning cheer practice. I erased that message before Juliet even woke up."

"We are such evil beeyotches," Courtney giggles quietly.

"Yes. Yes we are," I say.

As Max Caulfield walks by, we pretend her judgemental glares don't exist.

* * *

Twenty minutes before class starts, I decide my Everyday Heroes entry isn't good enough yet.

Oh well. I have photography last period. I'm sure Mr Jefferson will understand.

* * *

By noon, Kate's video has gone well and truly viral within the walls of Blackwell Academy.

Even the quiet and nerdy Brooke and Warren huddle over a phone for seven minutes with incredulous smiles on their faces.

Weird how the mockery of one student can bring an entire school together.

* * *

I don't have any classes with Nathan today and as such I can't do much about the quiet dread sitting in my stomach.

It's distracting enough that I give a wrong answer. And that is something I _never_ do.

* * *

Kate's video reaches a million views the moment I start eating lunch.

It's incredible, actually, how quickly this thing spread. If there was ever any hope of being a good person and salvaging Kate's reputation by erasing the video, it's long gone.

"I swear half the students on campus have reposted it," Courtney says as she sips a Coke. Her eyes are fixated on her silver phone and the image of Kate locking lips with some hipster guy that plays out on a screen coated in small scratches.

"We've gotta put her on the VIP list for the End of the World for sure," Taylor says. "Who knows? Maybe there's a sequel on the horizon."

"We've got photography last period. I'm sure Mr Jefferson wouldn't mind if we asked her about it." Courtney's smirk is wide and devious.

Our laughter lasts longer than would be comfortable.

From under a tree, Stella looks up at us with raised eyebrows, but quickly returns to her notes.

And that's the worst thing, really. Nobody actually gives a shit about Kate Marsh, or anyone but themselves.

If I wasn't who I am, I would probably despise every second of being here.

* * *

 **[10/07 – 14:19]**  
 **NATHAN: cpradrmj**

* * *

 **[10/07 – 14:20]**  
 **VICTORIA: Nathan?**  
 **VICTORIA: Hello?**

* * *

I get no reply.

I can only hope he caught his phone or something and that his nonsense doesn't mean anything worrying.

* * *

Jefferson's class passes by with the weirdest sense of déjà vu.

It starts when my phone buzzes and Max Caulfield suddenly has some kind of spasm from the back of the class. My eyes shift away from her bewildered face and instead drift to the phone.

It's Zachary. Ugh. The oaf probably thinks there's something serious going on. Whatever. Dana and Juliet can solve that clusterfuck themselves. I'm done.

Then Taylor throws a note across the class – _Dear Kate, we love your porn video! - XOXO Blackwell Academy_ – which lands on Kate's head. Taylor smirks beside me, but I'm struck by a weird sensation of familiarity. _Just the stress getting to you, Victoria. What you need is some serious blaze and chill time._

"Now, can anybody give me an example of a photographer who perfectly captured the human condition in black and white?" Mark Jefferson is asking to the class.

Even though I kinda zoned out for a moment, the answer still presents itself immediately. I raise my hand as my phone stops vibrating. "Diane Arbus."

This is all new stuff, but why does it feel like we've gone through it before?

"There you go, Victoria," Mark says with that haughty smile that does things to me. When I first heard that the photography teacher was a renowned photographer, I saw it as another advantage. Only when I found it it was Mark fucking Jefferson of all people, well…

You can't just do nothing when there's someone that hot. Yeah, it's such a stereotypical teenage girl thing. Fucking sue me.

"Why Arbus?"

And once again, the answer comes to me naturally. "Because of her images of hopeless faces. You feel, like, totally haunted by the sad eyes of those mothers and children."

Then Mr Jefferson launches into a lecture about capturing people at the height of their innocence. It's all totally new, but not at the same time.

Jefferson does have a tendency to go off on tangents. Maybe he's said similar things before.

I turn my head to look at Max Caulfield a couple of seconds before she actually takes the selfie, almost like I'm compelled to look over there.

Maybe I'm just thinking too much into this.

Jefferson quickly hushes the class and makes the shittiest pun on the planet. "Selfie-expression"? Really?

I take a second to remind myself what he stands for. This man could be the difference between my success and failure. In the long run, attending a prestigious school means very little. The art world is a relentless, unforgiving environment. I can't afford to lose sight of the prize.

"Could you please tell us the name of the process that gave birth to the first self portrait?"

I hide my amusement behind a blank face. We won't be studying the Daguerrian Process until a few months from now; that chapter is much further ahead than where we are now. _Maxine Caulfield, prepare to fall._

And then, impossibly, Max says, "The Daguerrian Process. Invented by a French painter named… Louis Daguerre. Around 1830."

It's almost as if my entire reality is displaced for a moment. That's… That's not something she should know. Every fibre of my being is telling me that she shouldn't have known that, and that I should have corrected her.

And instead, Mark Jefferson is praising _her_. Something acidic sticks in my throat. Despite everything, Max Caulfield is actually pretty good at photography. But her shy awkwardness has kept her in place, and from presenting more than three images.

If she's only just now decided to step up her game…

A sense of dread fills me as I think about my unfinished Everyday Heroes entry. She could snatch it all away in the course of an afternoon.

I have to speak with Mr Jefferson. I have to.

This photo contest, lame as it is, is the most important thing right now. My entire future could rest on the outcome.

* * *

Mark is pretty receptive to me as I lean against his desk, exuding a false confidence cultivated over a lifetime.

Yes, I know I still have to submit an entry, and yes, I know I still have to do my homework.

But I need to convince him I truly am a cut above the rest.

He seems to buy it when I tell him how truly dedicated I am in this pursuit, and how I will accept nothing less than perfection. It softens the blow when I finally tell him my entry isn't ready. And still he seems receptive to what I'm saying.

Until he notices Max Caulfield rushing out of the classroom like it's the end of the world or something.

"I see you Max Caulfield," he says, suddenly diverting all his attention to her. "Don't even think about leaving here until you talk about your entry."

A look of venom works its way onto my face as Max reluctantly approaches us. She honestly looks like she wants to be anywhere but here right now; why the fuck is Mr Jefferson wasting his time on her?

 _You know why. She's the best photographer in the class._ I pay no attention to this thought.

"I'm sorry Mr Jefferson, but I really need to—"

"Yes, excuse you," I snipe before she can finish. Almost nervously she plays with the strap of her bag. It's all some bullshit act of endearment. How can anyone fall for it?

It's both deeply upsetting and unsurprising, oddly enough, when Mr Jefferson says, "No, Victoria. Excuse us." He gives me a stern look that causes the most awful churning sensation in my stomach.

If it wasn't clear before, it's now apparent that Mark Jefferson's favourite student is Max Caulfield, of all people. It's so disgusting I want to run to the bathroom just to throw up.

"I'd never let one of photography's future stars avoid handing in her picture."

Future stars. Give me a fucking break. She's been here for a few weeks, and Mr Jefferson's fawning over her like she's the next big thing. Sure, her photos are good, but it's not like she'll ever do anything with them. She's too hipster to make it in the art world.

Max hesitates for a few moments, before finally saying, "I'm on top of it. I think John Lennon once said that 'Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans'."

Mr Jefferson's face lights up. "Max, you're on fire today. All the right answers. Good. Make sure you finish working on it by today. I have faith in you."

The entire exchange is so fucking nauseating.

"And as for you, Victoria," Mark says, giving me a stern gaze. I tense up. "It doesn't matter how devoted you are to your entry. The winner must be announced on Thursday night regardless of whether or not you turn your entry in." An unreadable expression crosses his face. "Just have it in by tomorrow, okay? You're a good photographer, Victoria. Don't shoot yourself in the foot in the pursuit of perfectionism, all right?"

When he walks over to Kate Marsh, who decided to take it upon herself to be his assistant for some unknown reason – probably to sleep with him as well, the slut – I waste no time in collecting my bag and leaving without another word.

I know when someone's being fake. In fact, even dense-as-fuck Max Caulfield would have seen how transparent Mr Jefferson was just now.

I'm just a 'good photographer'. Not 'one of photography's future stars'. What the fuck?

Obviously I have to step up my game. If I don't win this bullshit contest and Mom and Dad find out… The Chase Space will quickly become the Hell Space.

All my life they've told me how brutal the game has to be played. I've been prepared for this since I could operate a camera. And yet I'm still making all the amateur's mistakes.

It's pretty fucking shameful, to be honest.

* * *

Taylor and Courtney are standing by their lockers, waiting for me like loyal dogs waiting for their master. Sometimes I wonder how terrible it must be to be that desperate for acceptance and popularity.

"Hey Victoria," Taylor says. "How'd it go?"

"Mr Jefferson's still a pretentious bastard, Max Caulfield is still too hipster to live, and Kate Marsh is still God's favourite slut." I roll my eyes. "Wait until I submit my entry tomorrow. Then all this bullshit will be done with."

"Preach it, sister," Courtney says with a giggle. "You know—"

The fire alarm decides to start screaming at this very moment. I glance around to see every other student looking at each other in bewilderment and alarm.

"Ugh. What the fuck?" Taylor shouts over the high-pitched blare. "Seriously. This is not cool."

One minute later and David Madsen is herding us out of the building.

* * *

 **[10/07 – 16:13]**  
 **VICTORIA: Nate. Please tell me you heard that fire alarm bullshit.**  
 **VICTORIA: I swear to god I will punch whichever asshole decided that was a fun prank idea.**  
 **VICTORIA: Seriously. My ears are still ringing.**

* * *

"Would Nathan Prescott please come to the front office. Thank you."

Courtney looks up at the speaker, flinching in surprise. "Looks like a certain rich kid's been a naughty boy."

Taylor giggles.

I pretend there's no dread bubbling up inside me. _Nathan, what have you done?_

* * *

"Seriously. I can't believe Kate Marsh is still trying to get into Mr Jefferson's pants. You'd think a little viral video would stop that," Taylor says, thumbing through her phone.

"Well, it's apparent that innate stupidity is a curse nearly all the sluts at Blackwell possess," I say, placing one hand on the step as I sit. Across from us, Zach and Logan are tossing a football around like mindless zombies. "I mean, why the fuck would Juliet even want to go for such a Neanderthal? If anything, we're doing the bitch a favour."

"True," Courtney says. "I saw her in science today, and man was she pissed." She smirks coyly. "Let's just say it's a good thing that she and Dana don't share any classes. Otherwise, Kate Marsh might have some competition for the most infamous student at Blackwell."

"Yeah," I say airily, glancing down at my phone. Still no reply from Nathan. _What are you doing?_

"Well, now both of them _have_ to run into each other," Taylor says mischievously. "Shitstorm in T-minus…"

The afternoon sunlight is cut off by a figure standing in front of us. Max Caulfield, of course. She just stands there, looking at us for a few seconds with that bullshit front she puts on. She's not saying it, but it's there in her body language. Mr Jefferson's praise has made her look invincible. _Just rub the salt in the wound, why don't you?_

"Oh look, it's Max Caulfield, the selfie hoe of Blackwell," I say, standing up. Max looks at me defensively, with wide eyes. Like some kind of cornered animal. _Well. Even if that's the case, two can play at the predator-prey analogy._

I circle her whilst Courtney and Taylor give jeering smiles. "What a lame gimmick. Even Mark – Mr Jefferson – falls for your waif hipster bullshit."

And yet Max still stares like she couldn't give two shits about what I'm saying. Unconsciously I fold my arms as a light chilly breeze blows through. "'The Daguerrian Process, Sir!' You could barely even say that." _Keep your cool, Victoria. Keep your cool._ "I guess you got your meds filled."

Taylor and Courtney don't laugh until I look at them.

Max still looks at me, saying nothing, as I sit back down, surrounded by my false solidarity. Not that I would ever rely on either of these bitches in a crisis. Already the stone step is cold even though I was sitting there only a few seconds ago. "Since you know all the answers, I guess you have to find another way into the dorm. We ain't moving." Translation: _fuck off, bitch. This is what you get for playing the smart-ass photography protégée._

Max doesn't move, either. Overcome with irritation, I once again decide to try humiliation. _Seems to be your party trick, Victoria._ "Oh wait, hold that pose!"

I pull out my phone and snap a picture of Max staring there, dumbfounded. _We can all play at this paparazzi crap._ She rolls here eyes. I let a triumphant smile work its way onto my face. "So original. Don't worry, Max. I'll put a vintage filter on it right before I post it all over social medias."

Taylor and Courtney are looking at me expectantly, and Max is glaring with quiet fury. Time to deliver the final blow. "Now, why don't you go fuck your selfie?"

I receive one final glare from Max before she walks away. Good fucking riddance.

"She's just jealous of you, Victoria," Taylor says. "It's not your fault she can't take a good enough picture to enter the contest with."

The thing is, she probably can. And that's what frightens me the most. "It probably does explain why she was practically kissing Mr Jefferson's ass in class today."

There's a sudden low rumble. "Hey, what's that—" Courtney begins.

All at once the sprinklers erupt in a gushing stream of water that succeeds in soaking our clothes and bags pretty fucking thoroughly. Taylor lets out a surprised shriek.

"What the hell?" I say as the water soaks through to my skin. "Are you kidding? Look at this?" The most basic rule of human existence: do not fucking mix cashmere and water.

The money this sweater cost… if it's damaged, there will be blood.

Courtney decides now is the perfect moment to place a "supportive" hand on my shoulder. "Chill, Victoria. It's just water—"

I pull away violently. "Yeah. Water on my cashmere! Do you know how much this fucking outfit cost?" This seems to shut down their pathetic attempts at pacifying me. _Yeah. This one outfit probably cost more than your scholarships._

"You look… great…" Taylor tries to offer, and oh my fucking God I have never heard such a shallow attempt at trying to regain my favour. I elect to ignore it. For her sake.

"I can't even chill on the steps." In the autumn air, a chill is already setting in. _Jesus. Can this day get any fucking worse?_

I spoke too soon. It's like rule 101 of comedy. Never say the cursed words "it can't get any worse". Because guess what. It can.

Above me, Samuel reaches to grab his can of paint when it falls off the hook. There's no warning before it hits the ground and a wave of white paint completely fucking soaks me. "No way! No fucking way!"

"Oh, Victoria. You okay?" Courtney says, but I bat her away. Nothing about this fucking situation is okay. Nothing.

Samuel is climbing down the ladder and walking towards me sympathetically. A chill runs up my spine. "Ol' Samuel is sorry. Wet paint is not good for hair, nope. Sorry—"

"Get the hell away from me, weirdo!" I spit, backing up. Taylor and Courtney are flocking around me, trying to be useful and trying to make sure I'm not pissed at _them_. How fucking shallow.

"Hold on, hold on," Courtney says, her eyes flashing with worry. "We'll get some towels. We'll be right back!"

"So move your ass before I dry!"

And they're off like obedient drones wishing to appease their queen bee. At least they're not here to piss me off even further.

I begin to shiver as I sit on the steps, willing for a massive fucking black hole to swallow me up. There's no way nobody else saw this. I just hope to God it was nobody important.

* * *

(In all this bullshit, a certain contact on my phone slips my mind, not to be remembered until the sun is going down and snow is in the air.)

* * *

Max Caulfield of all people walks up the path, and stops a few feet in front of me.

Bitter, vulnerable, and humiliated, I have nothing to lose. "What do you want, Max?"

I consider, briefly, that this encounter could go in one of two very differing ways.

However, luck finally decides to be on my side for once.

"I am sorry," Max says and seems actually genuine. I sit up in surprise. "That's an awesome cashmere coat…"

I try to ignore the feeling of paint drying in my hair and instead look up and down my outfit. It'll take a miracle to salvage it. "It was. But there will be another." I have never felt so much like utter shit before.

"Well, you always seem to know how to pick the right outfits." It's honestly like I've stepped into the Twilight Zone or something. Max Caulfield, pretentious selfie slut, is giving me a genuine compliment. And I'm accepting it. _Can paint fumes still get you high even if you're not directly inhaling them?_

"I do have some talent," I tell her, trying to ignore how my teeth are chattering. "Mr Jefferson told me—"

"I've seen your pictures," Max says, almost enthusiastically. Seriously. It's as if I've entered some alternate reality or something. "You have a great eye. Richard Avedon-esque." And—

—It's stupid, but that one comment means more to me than any of Mark Jefferon's bullshit fake praise. _You have got to be tripping balls, Victoria._

"He's one of my heroes," I finally say. If I am losing it, then I might as well go all the way. "Thanks, Max."

There's a moment of silence where I can _feel_ the paint hardening on my face and I am convinced this is what hell feels like. "I hope those sluts get a towel before they hang a sign on me," I say to Max, who seems genuinely amused by my comment. _Too fucking weird._

Max gives me a faint smile and… fuck it. This girl isn't deserving of all this bitter hate and envy. She had every right to be bitchy after what I did, but instead she's showing decency. _Just goes to show that you can never truly know a person._

"You deserve a better shot," I tell her, pulling out my phone. Luckily it survived the chaos. "Sorry about blocking you, and… and the 'go fuck your selfie'."

 **IMG201310071644 – Are you sure you want to delete this image?**

I remove the picture before Max can speak again. She deserves better than to be caught up in all this petty bullshit teen drama. "That was mean… but pretty funny."

"Just one of those days, you know?" And it feels like there's a moment of actual solidarity between us. It's weird, but not wrong. Better than the alternative.

"I know exactly what you mean, Victoria," Max says with a small smile. "I'll see you later."

I move aside to let her pass, and will myself to ignore the cold dampness of the stairs.

* * *

As I sit on my own, with nothing but the sounds of meatheads tossing a ball and Alyssa turning the pages of some trashy novel for company, it occurs to me that I was probably played by Max Caulfield.

 _She wasn't trying to bury the hatchet. She was just using you to get into the dorms as quickly as possible. All those compliments? Bullshit lies to get you to go along with what she wanted._

Feeling shittier than ever, I pull out my phone again. _At least she wasn't a bitch to me. She didn't try and start some more shit. I have to give her that at least._

Still, to use someone like that is a pretty fucking low blow.

* * *

 **[10/07 – 17:06]**  
 **VICTORIA: BTW THX BUT WE'RE NOT FRIENDS**

* * *

Even so, I don't regret deleting the photo.

I've started enough shit at Blackwell for one week.

* * *

The towels are ultimately ineffectual. All they serve to do is smear the paint that hasn't dried. Parts of my hair stick to my scalp and if it has to be cut out Samuel is losing his job.

Taylor ends up paying the bus fare to the dry-cleaners.

* * *

 **[10/07 – 18:12]**  
 **NATHAN: fukn rachel amber**  
 **NATHAN: all her fault what a hore**  
 **NATHAN: i hate**

* * *

I change my clothes in the dry-cleaner's bathroom and rinse my hair as best I can using the sink.

Taylor and Courtney ask no questions as I leave without a word.

* * *

I find him sitting at one of the benches on campus with a camera.

My stomach drops as I see the scratch marks on the left side of his face. "Nathan..."

"Just. Don't ask," he says, his voice strained. "Don't."

I sit in front of him and we look at each other in silence. "Shitty day, huh?" I say softly.

Nathan is shaking, but I don't comment on it. "Fuck this entire school right up the asshole," he says with venom. The setting sun behind him almost seems to fuel his fire. "Fuck Principal Wells, fuck Max Caulfield, fuck Rachel Amber."

"Max Caulfield?" I ask.

"Bitch though she could be a smart-ass," Nathan says. "Tried to sell slander to Principal Wells to get me in the shit just 'cause she's jealous of the Vortex Club. Set the record straight, though."

Drama between Max and Nathan? I guess there's more going on at Blackwell than I care to know.

"Oh Jesus Christ _what the FUCK!_ "

Nathan suddenly punches the table and reels away. My heart skips more than a few beats. "Nathan?"

"Oh fuck it's happening. It's gonna happen." Genuine terror tinged with madness laces Nathan's words.

"Nathan, you're seriously weirding me the fuck out right now—"

" _IT'S ALL HER FAULT!_ " Nathan shrieks. "If… if _Rachel Amber_ hadn't… If she hadn't… _SHIT!_ "

"Nate?"

When he finally comes to, tears are coming down his face. My heart flutters in my chest like a trapped butterfly. "All her fault… All her fault…"

Not for the first time, the thought enters my head. _Rachel Amber, what the fuck did you do?_

I always saw her as an aloof, too-cool-for-school kind of girl. But, as I'm quickly realising, everyone is shrouded in layer upon layer of secrecy.

And the fact still stands. If the mere mention of her can make Nathan so vulnerable, then she's obviously done some fucking terrible shit.

My hate for her grows more and more with every passing hour.

When Nathan's phone buzzes, he looks at me like a deer caught in the headlights. "I've… I've gotta take this privately," he says. A few seconds later, his eyes mist over and I know more freaky shit's about to happen.

"It's cool," I say shakily, standing to me feet. "I'll see you tomorrow, Nathan."

I quickly hurry out of earshot, becoming increasingly aware that there is something horribly wrong surrounding Nathan Prescott.

And for some reason, it terrifies me.

* * *

 **[10/07 – 18:44]**  
 **COURTNEY: OMG VICTORIA I AM SO SORRY ABOUT YOUR SWEATER GIRL**  
 **COURTNEY: IF THERE'S ANYTHING I CAN DO I'M HERE FOR YOU**  
 **VICTORIA: You know, all that shit with the paint did mean I wasted a lot of time I could have used working on my entry. :/**  
 **VICTORIA: There's no way I can do my homework AND submit a photo.**  
 **COURTNEY: DON'T WORRY I'M ON IT**  
 **COURTNEY: JUST FOCUS ON YOUR PHOTO I'VE GOT THE HOMEWORK COVERED**  
 **VICTORIA: You are a life-saver.**  
 **VICTORIA: Thanks Courtney!**  
 **COURTNEY: ANYTHING FOR MY GIRL VICTORIA**

* * *

At least there are some perks to having minions.

* * *

As I walk over to the dorms, I stop by the noticeboard. It's plastered with Rachel Amber posters.

The root of all Nathan's problems. _It's you, bitch. You're the one fucking my friend up, even when you're not here. It's always got to be about you, doesn't it?_

Furious, I tear a poster off the board, ripping it in half in the process.

It flutters to the ground as the first snowflake touches my skin. _What the hell?_

I look up to see an entire flurry of white flakes descending from the golden sky.

It's only just autumn. There's no way this should be possible.

Well, you know what? Of course this shitty day would be heralding the fucking apocalypse.

* * *

I stand there for an unknown amount of time, mesmerised and disturbed as millions and millions of individual white flakes whirl from above to touch the ground and melt into the pavement like a graceful, powerful, silent force of nature.

It's hauntingly beautiful.

God, I wish I had my camera on me.


	5. Out of Time

The light on my phone indicates that it's two in the morning by the time my entry is finally done.

Bags lining my eyes, I kiss the photograph.

This one's a winner for sure.

* * *

 **[10/08 – 06:11]**  
 **TAYLOR: victoria did you SEE that freaky snowfall last night?**  
 **TAYLOR: lol guess arcadia bay itself is sporting end of the world party cheer! :D**

* * *

(I don't think about how the snow started to fall only a few minutes after Nathan's freak-out. Some things have to be coincidences in this world.)

* * *

 **From: Youtube-noreply**

 **Congratulations! Your video 'Vortex Club – October 2013 PARTY HARD – Kate's gone wild!' has reached 2 million views and is now eligible for ad revenue!**

 **Want to make money off your videos? Click the link below!**

* * *

I delete the message after twenty seconds. That's a line even I won't cross.

* * *

My hair isn't even dry from the shower when Taylor knocks on my door.

"Yes?" I say, trying to shake the final remnants of drowsiness away. Taylor stands in the doorway clutching her tablet with a wide smile on her face. Oh my God it is too early for this.

"Good morning, Victoria," she says impishly.

"Okay. I give in," I say. "What's the good news? All the missing posters vanish overnight?"

"Better," Taylor says. She walks past me and enters my room. I let her. She sits on my couch, opening something up on her tablet. "Guess who may or may not have hired DJ Doom for the End of the World?"

"Oh my God, no way," I say, closing the door. "Are you for real?" I know Taylor has money and connections, but really. Someone that high profile?

"See for yourself," Taylor says. She presents the tablet to me, and I read.

* * *

 **From: theofficialdjdoom420666**

 **Sup vortexx club! dj doom here ready to drop those beats for you at the end of the world!**

 **are you ready to PARTY?**

* * *

"Oh my God, Taylor," I say to her, returning the tablet. "This is fucking amazing. How did you manage this?"

"Well, since Nathan's off in psycho town, someone has to assume the role of the party planner," Taylor says with a wink. "And it gets better."

"How?" I ask. I ignore the remark about Nathan. _Have_ to.

"Try having an exclusive party mix just for the Vortex Club," Taylor says. "More than a dozen original songs, plus some other big indie club artists."

"You'd better have them with you," I say. "Or I swear to God you're not getting into this party."

Taylor simply giggles. "When am I one to disappoint?"

* * *

 _One for the money, two for the show, three of us girls, four let's go._

"This is my favourite," I say, sliding on my bracelets.

"Yeah. Especially when you listen to the lyrics," Taylor says. She's watching another video on her phone at the same time. It doesn't even need saying what it is. "It's basically our anthem. Three girls, queens of the club, not giving a shit what anybody thinks of us. I'm going to play it until everyone's sick of it. And even then, I'm not stopping."

 _Not giving a shit what anybody thinks._ That's a lie.

You can't be successful without giving a shit. You can't be shameless.

It's something Mom and Dad drilled into me my whole life.

* * *

 _All Eyes on Me_ is on its third loop when there's another knock on the door. I don't even think about which loop the video on Taylor's phone is on.

I open the door, this time a hell of a lot more presentable. If it were anyone else other than Taylor the first time (with one exception but now is _not_ the time to think of that), there would have been blood. The day they impose a law preventing anyone from talking to you before seven in the morning will be the greatest achievement of humanity.

Courtney stands there with a rehearsed smile on her face. "Hey Victoria," she says in her faux-flaky valley girl accent. Honestly, she's so fucking insecure about sounding like she's from Oregon that if she hadn't been part of the Vortex Club, it would have destroyed her. _Everyone has a weakness. It's just all about surrounding yourself with people who won't exploit it._

I refuse to ever think about my own weaknesses.

"Courtney," I say by way of greeting. From across the hall comes the sound of acoustic guitar and hipster vocals. Max Caulfield has decided to join the realm of the living. From a little further down the hall comes the sound of alternative pop that can only belong to Dana. There's a reason she throws her own parties, and it pretty much entirely has to do with her lack in musical taste.

"I just came by to uphold my promise," she says. It takes me a couple seconds for it to register. "Anything to secure a win for my girl, Victoria."

"All right then," I say. Taylor looks up from the couch with a curious look on her face. "I'll just be a minute."

"Vic, what's going on?" Taylor asks.

"Courtney's decided to be incredibly generous and support my photo in the contest by selflessly choosing to help me on a few homework assignments." I miss out the part where the girl is terrified that she'll make one misstep and all her status and security will come crumbling down around her. _She's spared that fate for this week, at least,_ I think. "The papers are on my desk; Taylor, could you grab them?"

"Sure," she says. She leaves her phone on the couch and I can hear a muffled club beat and drunken laughter. I hate the way it makes me feel. Courtney, too, has heard it. She's stifling a giggle as Taylor dumps the papers in her arms before sitting back down.

"Courtney, seriously, do not forget I need those papers before tonight. Like, now," I say. Behind Courtney, I see the door to Max Caulfield's room open. "Thanks cherie."

"Yeah, of course, Victoria," Courtney says. "I'll get the tests and papers to you this afternoon." She gives me a smile and turns to walk away. "I am so on it, consider it done."

I shut the door just as Max begins to walk down the hallway.

* * *

 _Your head's rash, it's hard to keep quiet. If I had to guess, you're about to start a riot. Light a match and just burn it away, thinking of ways to start a new day._

 _It's all wrong._

"Man," Taylor says. "Courtney is such a fucking drone." _Like you're above it, Taylor._

Instead, I say, "I'd be stupid not to take advantage of it." I sit at my desk and start up my laptop.

"You are so evil," Taylor says with a laugh. "At this rate you'll make the whole of Blackwell your bitch before the end of the week."

"Uh huh," I murmur, paying more attention to my emails than Taylor. "Oh my God. Blackwell can afford to hire Mark fucking Jefferson to teach here, but they can't afford WiFi that isn't completely shitty."

Taylor just laughs, starting up the video again. "I heard it's better in the boys' dorms," she says. "You should ask Kate. She had more than enough time to get comfortable over there." She smirks crudely at her own sense of humour.

I don't think about seeing Kate lying in a heap on Saturday morning as the morning rays framed her vulnerable body. I don't think about how if we turned off the music we would only hear a silence where before there was the sound of violin. I refuse.

"Come on now," I say. "We both know that Kate's agenda didn't include tapping keyboards."

Embarrassingly, it takes Taylor a few beats to get it. "Good one, Victoria." _And you say Courtney is the slave._

"Anyway, we should—"

My heart drops to my stomach.

* * *

 **(1) New Email(s) from Nathan Prescott**

 **Click to view.**

* * *

I read it.

"Hey, Victoria?" Taylor says and I realise I must have done something. Instinctively I straighten my back. "What kinda fucked-up shit did Nathan send you?"

The music's stopped and Kate's video is no longer playing. I minimise the tab and look at Taylor. "Just another freaky screamer along with the party details. Honestly it's fucking stupid how Nathan still gets to me."

"True," Taylor says. But she's cautious. "Anyway, you chill?"

"I'm chill," I say. _Deep breaths, Victoria._ "We should… we should head out, now. I've got too many things to do today and I need to have the time to give my photo to Mr Jefferson."

"Cool," Taylor replies. She picks up her phone and pockets it. "I've gotta call my mom, anyway. So, uh, wanna head out together?"

I pick up my bag and carefully place the photo inside. "Sure. But first, we need to hit the bathrooms. It still feels like I'm a fucking freshly-coated picket fence."

* * *

Nathan's email was too put together. It sounded thought-out, premeditated. Devoid of emotion. Like an essay.

It doesn't marry with the image of the frightened boy in the snow yesterday. And that doesn't sit right.

At some point I begin chewing the inside of my cheek as a nervous habit. I don't notice when it starts and I don't think about stopping.

It's either that or go insane worrying about Nathan Prescott.

* * *

"Anyway, they said she should be out of the hospital by the end of the week if things keep going like they do," Taylor says. "I'm so fucking glad, Victoria. If something had gone wrong, I—"

"Well, it didn't," I tell her. "I wouldn't waste my energy thinking about things that'll never happen."

That doesn't stop me from lying in my bed until two in the morning, consumed by thoughts of Nathan Prescott and the unnerving mysteries surrounding him.

It's something I'll never find out, but something I want to know desperately.

Taylor touches my shoulder as I grab the door handle. "Seriously, thanks Victoria. You're the only one that actually gives a shit. Everyone else just pays lip-service to keep their reputation in the Vortex Club." Taylor gives me a genuine smile and my stomach twists.

 _You're such a fucking hypocrite._ I can go from ruining Kate Marsh's life to being Taylor's best friend in the space of two days. I don't know which feeling is the most fake.

"Don't mention it, Taylor," I say instead. "Everyone needs someone to look out for them, right?"

"I fucking love you, Victoria," Taylor says.

"I know," I reply, pushing open the door.

We step outside, and—

"Fuck," I say.

* * *

He stands in Max's doorway, looking at us like a deer caught in the headlights.

For the longest time, nobody says anything. It feels like my heart has just dive-bombed into my stomach.

Taylor raises an eyebrow. A million and one questions are on her lips.

Infinitely more are on mine.

"Look, I…" Nathan begins to say but stops. He tears a Rachel Amber poster off the wall. "I'm sorry."

And then he runs down the hallway and out the door.

"What the fuck?" Taylor says. "Seriously, it's like he's off his meds or something."

 _You're not too far from the truth,_ I think. _Or at least, what I see as the truth._

"Who even knows with Nathan," I say, keeping my face impassive.

* * *

"Damn, he's fucked up," Taylor says as she steps over an overturned box. A mountain of Polaroids spill out all over the _KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON_ rug. I glance down and see a photo of a girl in a beanie dancing with a cigarette in her hand. _Chloe Price. No fucking way._

There's a torn-up Rachel Amber poster scattered across the carpet. Her grey-scale eyes look up at me with that shallow smile.

Taylor pulls out her phone and snaps a photo of the carnage.

 _Is Nathan Prescott in there with you? You must be hella fucking stupid to get close to him._

I refuse to think about her connection with Rachel Amber. _Max, Nathan, Chloe…_

It seems that everyone in Arcadia Bay is involved with Rachel Amber somehow. Single-handedly, she is tearing Blackwell Academy apart.

Hell, even Mr Jefferson looks uncomfortable when he overhears students gossiping about her in class.

"Oh my fucking God. Vic, look at this shit." Taylor's standing over Max's bed with an uncomfortable look on her face.

"What?" I say, walking over to join her. I go to say more but then I look at the bed and—

"Fucking shit."

It's a photograph of Max's head superimposed onto a monochrome image of a dinner plate with the eyes scratched out. The head of some dead animal is next to her. The contrast is exquisite and haunting and nauseating all at once.

Her photo wall is in shambles and the message written in red makes me want to hurl.

 **NOBODY MESSES WITH ME BITCH**

 _Jesus Christ, Nathan._

It's wrong. I can't. I _shouldn't. He's sick and needs help and this is not his fault._

It doesn't matter what I tell myself. I'm still shaking in fear at the sight of Nathan's work.

Somehow Taylor still finds it in her to smile at it all. "Nathan should have submitted this for his Everyday Heroes entry," she says.

"Yeah," I say. "And I should submit a still from Kate's vid."

"If only we'd filmed it in HD," Taylor says.

"It wouldn't matter," I say. "I wouldn't want Kate's whore-face to be the thing that launches my career."

I want to leave this room. I want to find Nathan and find out what the hell is going on. I don't want to think about Kate's video.

But that's not how life works. You can't just drop the shit that's actually happening to pursue possibilities.

"Let's blow this place," Taylor says. "It's creepy as hell and I think I need to ward off an anxiety attack." Before I can respond, she walks off through the doorway. I hear a crunch and look down to see a cookie ground into the carpet.

It's too much.

I feel like the veil is being lifted and an ugly frightening reality is presenting itself to me.

For the first time I wonder if going to Blackwell was the right decision.

* * *

 **[10/08 – 07:43]**  
 **VICTORIA: Nate what the hell is going on?**  
 **VICTORIA: This is some creepy shit. Yeah Max is a nosey faux-hipster bitch but if Wells believes her you could get your ass busted. :(**  
 **VICTORIA: Please just answer.**  
 **VICTORIA: You've been acting weird all week and I'm worried.**

* * *

The silence unsettles but doesn't surprise me. It seems that in the past few days this has become the norm.

It doesn't stop me from wanting things to go back to how they were.

It's only been two days but there's already a horrific feeling of foreboding in the air. It feels as if something devastating is coming and things will only get worse as we reach the climax.

I put Max's Polaroids back in the box before heading out of her room. I make sure to shut the door before hurrying down the hallway.

* * *

Taylor leans against the wall, looking pale as she focuses on her phone's screen. Next to her is Kate's room but that isn't important.

"Try to clean Max Selfie's room?" Taylor says lightly, but the unease is more obvious than—

The metaphor runs flat in my head. As I've come to find out, nothing is truly obvious around here.

"More like trying to weasel answers out of Nathan Prescott," I say.

"I don't know why you bother with him so much," Taylor says. "He's only fun when he's high and half his creepy bullshit is probably just because of – what mental illness does he have again?"

 _Which illness doesn't he have?_ I'm no psychologist, but whatever the fuck's wrong with Nathan doesn't neatly fit into one category.

"Yes, but half the shit he does isn't his fault," I say. "Not really." Defending a fucked-up misunderstood rich kid to an archetypal high school bitch straight out of California. I had no idea this was what awaited me when I left Seattle.

"You can tell those people who say Harry Potter fucked up a generation are right," Taylor says. She's not cold, but she's not expressive either. "We're all friends with and care about Nathan because he's basically a real-life Draco." Taylor lets out an empty laugh. "Wow. I swear to you that my nerd phase was killed and buried when I was fourteen."

"Whatever, Taylor," I say with a flick of irritation. "It doesn't really matter what's up with Nathan when Kate Marsh provides all the entertainment we need."

I loathe my Queen Bee armour with all my being, but it's the only armour I have.

"You're right," Taylor says. "Anyway, is it cool if we make a quick bathroom detour? I've gotta video call my mom and I need to make sure I don't look like total shit."

"It's cool," I say. "I have to give my photo to Mr Jefferson this morning anyway." _And try to get in touch with Nathan._ But Taylor doesn't have to know that.

"Hey," Taylor says as we walk down the hallway. She stops as she rests a hand on the door handle. "At least you know Mr Jefferson will choose you after he sees your photograph."

"Well, yeah," I say. "I worked too damn hard for him not to."

So long as Max Caulfield doesn't submit. If she does, then I won't stand a change.

I'll become worthless – nothing – in Mark Jefferson's eyes. And that cannot happen.

* * *

We step inside, and I freeze the moment I see Kate Marsh standing over the sink, brushing her teeth.

Taylor gives me a vicious smile and I take comfort in knowing I'm not the only hypocrite here.

* * *

"What's up, Kate?" I say as I flawlessly stride across the bathroom. I lean against the sink and let the smirk materialise on my face. Kate drops the toothbrush and stares at the faucets like they're the only things that matter.

She looks so vulnerable but I can't let that affect me now. Nathan's display has already thrown me off-kilter once. I can't afford to slip up again. My confidence cannot be knocked any further before I submit my photo.

"School," Kate says in a quiet, shaky voice that is barely heard over the sound of the rushing shower. _At least whoever's in there can't hear this._

"That's it?" Taylor says. She leans against the other sink, effectively leaving Kate surrounded. Like a pincer. Assault from both sides.

But now it's my turn to continue the attack. "That video of you clubbing didn't look like homework…" I say. I don't add, "It took less than seven minutes for me to utterly ruin your life forever."

I know that by now removing the video would do nothing. If it hasn't been re-uploaded already, both Courtney and Taylor have copies on standby.

"Victoria, that wasn't me…" Kate says and I almost want to believe her until I recall her stumbling around the Vortex party, kissing a different guy with each flash of the strobe lights. _Even if the video was a shitty move, she still did it._

"Oh my God. Right," Taylor says with laughter on the edge of her voice. No matter what, Kate cannot deny that she made out with half the male population of Blackwell. I mean, come on. If you're gonna whore it up, at least own up to it, right?

(In my mind, I entertain a whole variety of horrific reasons why she did it that I learned about in a defence class a lifetime ago. But the thought that someone could do that at a Vortex Club party is so vile that I can't stomach it.)

"Don't be shy," I say. "I think it's awesome you set a tongue record on video…" It's a disgusting, inexcusable last-ditch attempt at reconciliation. _Own it. Don't give it power over you._

Taylor laughs and Kate walks away from us before the tears glistening in the corners of her eyes can roll down her pale cheeks. "You're going to be sorry someday." _I'm already sorry. But we're too deep down this rabbit hole to turn back now._

"Oh boo hoo, I'm sorry you're a viral slut," I say as Kate vanishes behind the door. As she goes, so does the final chance to make amends. _Now I have to ride this out as the queen bitch._ I turn to Taylor with a forced smile on my face. "I'm sure she had fun." Maybe she did at the time, but I can safely say that right now, Kate Marsh is not having a good time.

"Looks like it," Taylor says, leaning against Kate's sink.

A hundred sickening theories plague my mind that should never leave the privacy of my thoughts. To Taylor, I say, "I know Nathan hooked her up. And you know he has the good shit."

That's the least upsetting of them. And I hope to God Nathan's involvement doesn't go any further.

Taylor looks at her reflection. "Preach it, sista."

I glance away from her and try to ignore the feelings of dread that arise whenever I think about Nathan Prescott.

At least, until I catch my reflection and the white splatter on my cheek. "Yuck, I still have goddamn paint all over my face." A flicker of irritation rises up and I choose to focus on that instead.

Taylor looks at me in dopey surprise. And that makes it just a little bit easier to be pissed at her. "Good thing my faithful minions took their sweet time bringing me a towel." Although, if it hadn't come out of my hair, things would have turned ugly.

I cup my hands and splash some water on my face. It sort of makes the paint a little less noticeable. At least, enough that a fresh coating of make-up should should do the rest. Thank God I didn't go out anywhere last night.

"We ran all the way—" Taylor sounds so pleading and desperate and pathetic and in moments like this Courtney is infinitely preferable company.

"Give it a rest, Taylor," I snap. A brief moment of silence hangs in the air, tainted only by the sounds of the shower. In the lull I manage to rub a little more of the paint off. "Now I know if I'm in an accident I won't rely on you or Courtney for help. You can hang out with Kate… or Max."

Not that I would rely on them anyway. In the real world, you only have yourself to trust and rely on. My own judgement is the only one that matters.

The sound of the shower changes. I ignore the fact that somebody could be listening in. _We've talked enough shit that they should have said something by now._

Unless, of course, it's Max Caulfield. She _would_ be the type to listen in without saying anything.

Whatever. She's the last person I want to think about right now.

"She's a weirdo with that dumb camera," Taylor says. Glad that the bitching has shifted to less personal territory.

"I hate that 'I'm so quirky' crap," I say, scrubbing the last of the paint off my face. Honestly, Max Caulfield isn't worth talking shit about right now.

Besides, she had the perfect opportunity to exact revenge on me. And instead she extended the olive branch. I think she deserves a free pass just this once.

Unfortunately, I'm not that good a person.

"Anyway," I say to Taylor, forcing a smile. "Let's leave the link to Kate's video so everybody gets a chance to see her in action..."

Taylor stifles a snort. "You are such an evil beeatch. I love it!"

As I pull out the lipstick and bring it to the mirror, I wonder if either of us knows where the sincerity ends and the falsehood begins.

* * *

 **: / / KATESVID . C O M**

Nineteen characters that will have devastating consequences.

* * *

 **[10/08 – 08:00]**  
 **VICTORIA: Nathan?**  
 **VICTORIA: Still silent, huh?**  
 **VICTORIA: Come on just answer already!**

* * *

I part ways with Taylor and walk out of the dorms with my heart in my throat.

It's stupid. I'm about to enter my photo and potentially change my life forever but I'm still worrying about one rich, damaged boy.

Taylor's words haunt me. I don't care about Nathan just because he's hot and tormented with a wallet bigger than this common sense. Do I?

I don't even know why I'm so caught up in worrying. Once I win the Everyday Heroes contest, Nathan Prescott will no longer matter to me.

That's what I must force myself to believe.

* * *

"Man, that's disgusting."

I walk past Zach and Logan outside the front of the school. I don't even need to look to know that they will be preoccupied for seven minutes.

"Pretty fucking hot, though. It's like those 'church girl turns to sin' pornos but in real life."

I feel ill.

* * *

 **[10/08 – 08:05]**  
 **VICTORIA: Answer, Nathan.**  
 **VICTORIA: Please.**

* * *

Samuel and I almost collide by the fountain.

"The hell?" I exclaim as he looks up at me through those ugly-ass glasses.

"Terribly sorry," he says. "Seems that Samuel is making a terrible habit of inconveniencing you."

"Yeah, well just knock it off," I tell him. A chill runs through my body at the sight of him. How the fuck can one person be so creepy? "We've both got more important things to do." I fold my arms defensively.

Samuel just gives an oddly serene smile. "You know, you shouldn't make a mess of Rachel Amber's posters," he says. "You have more in common than you think; both of you enjoy treading the fine line between light and shadow for fame. Just take care where you aim your camera, Miss Chase."

The breath leaves my body and ice stabs my lungs instead. "How?" I say, backing away from him. "Were you spying on me?"

"You just need to pay attention. You'll be surprised what you see," Samuel says. "Samuel finds out many things like this; it's how I see the shade beneath the sun. The chaos beneath the order."

"Just leave me the _hell_ alone," I say. My heart is pounding in my chest and I fight an urge to scream.

"I'm so sorry; I didn't mean to offend," Samuel says. He drops his brush and raises his hands.

"Well, you are," I snap and turn away. "Don't _ever_ talk to me again."

I run away. It's stupid as fuck, but I still do it.

Unnerved by a fucking _janitor_. Nathan would laugh if he found out.

* * *

The halls are silent as I enter the school. There's only the sounds from the cafeteria to keep me company.

I don't make it far before I notice the massive _Enter the Vortex Club_ banner hanging from the ceiling. Seems that Courtney's useful for something, at least.

Oh yeah. The End of the World is coming up. For more than one reason I'm not that excited about it.

The only good thing about it is that the winner of the photo contest will be announced then.

* * *

"You don't _fucking own me!_ "

I'm still looking at the Vortex Club banner when he runs up to me from my right. He stops in his tracks the minute he locks eyes with me.

"Nathan?" I say with trepidation.

The blind rage on his face vanishes in the blink of an eye. With the morning sun shining on him through the windows, he suddenly looks incredibly small and vulnerable.

"Victoria… shit, I…" He glances at the exit, but I take a deliberate step before he can move.

"Don't think you can walk away from me this time," I say. "Nathan, what's going on with you?"

My mind flashes back to the meds spilling across every surface of his room and I realise I probably know exactly what's going on. But I need to hear it from his mouth.

"Fuck—"

"Miss Chase! You're up early this morning."

The conversation is magnificently derailed by Mark Jefferson as he walks up the hallway from his classroom. "Nathan," he says in greeting.

And it takes about two seconds for butterflies to pump themselves into my stomach. _Victoria Chase. Fourteen years old._

"Oh, good morning Mr Jefferson," I say. Nathan gives me a look but I ignore him. "Oddly enough, I was coming to see you."

Mark's eyebrows rise. "Oh? Were you?" he says, folding his arms. "Is there something you needed to talk about?"

"Yes, actually," I tell him. Nathan stands there awkwardly with a nervous twitch. "I came to give you my Everyday Heroes entry. I'm sorry it's so late, but you can't rush perfection."

I pull out the photograph and hand it to him. A small smile crosses his lips. "Thank you, Victoria," he says and fuck. When he says my name it does things to me. _Way to play the professional, Chase._

"Do you like it?" I dare to ask, even though from his expression it's obvious that I'm the winner.

"It's… wonderful, Victoria," he says softly. "But I can't judge just yet. Not when a few stragglers still have to submit their entries. Max Caulfield, to name one."

And just like that I go from cloud nine to having a fist shoved into my gut. "I completely understand," I say. Sometimes ass-kissing is the only thing you can do. "What's the point of a contest if we don't play fair?"

"Exactly, Victoria," Mark says. "I wouldn't want anyone to be found guilty of cheating. I think we'd all prefer it if the winner was… innocent, to frame it one way."

Nathan goes white at the remark.

"You're totally right, Mr Jefferson," I say.

"Anyway, I have to update some portfolios in my office," Mark says. He pockets the photograph. "I'll see you in class."

"Au revoir," I tell him as he walks down the hallway, vanishing behind the doors.

* * *

Eventually, I will look back on this encounter and wish I had shoved a knife into his gut rather than a photograph into his hands.

But you don't gain hindsight until the tragedy has happened.

* * *

"Let's talk outside," Nathan says, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I'd rather not have the entire fucking faculty hear us."

"Whatever you say, Nathan," I say. "Just don't think about running away."

The bags under his eyes are abysmal.

"I won't," he says, trying and failing to be aloof. I place one hand on the door and don't even try to be subtle as I trash another Rachel Amber poster. "By the way, sorry for worrying you, Victoria."

His voice cracks and I hate the way I want to comfort him.

I try to force myself to think about the fact that he is somehow involved in Kate getting fucked-up enough to try and get into the pants with every Vortex jock in sight.

It fails to stop the pity.

* * *

 **[10/08 – 08:24]**  
 **COURTNEY: HEY VICTORIA I'M SORRY FOR NOT WORKING ON YOUR PAPERS BUT SARAH FLAKED ON MANNING THE VORTEX TABLE SO I HAVE TO DO IT**  
 **COURTNEY: DON'T WORRY I'LL DO IT AFTER CLASS I PROMISE**  
 **VICTORIA: It's fine, Courtney. So long as it's done before tonight that's all that matters. :u**  
 **VICTORIA: See you this afternoon.**

* * *

It feels like I'm living two lives at once. In one I am the ruler of the most powerful clique in the school. In the other, I am attempting to smooth over the cracks of the fragile, damaged psyche of an asset-turned-friend. If I slip up on either one, they will shatter like glass.

Neither one is what I want for myself.

* * *

Nathan finally decides that a bench outside the school is a good place to talk.

It's not the bench we sat at as he screamed and despaired over Rachel Amber's unseen crimes. He makes a point to avoid it. We're closer to the road now, and I can see the school bus pulling up with the kids who don't live in the dorms. It's a little chillier this morning, but the rising sun is quickly warming things up.

Even though it feels like a metaphorical storm is brewing, everything is serene and calm. The dissonance between people and nature has never felt so apparent. _Wow. Keep these hipster thoughts up and you might as well join hands with Max Caulfield._

Sometimes I wonder what our dynamic would be, stripped of all the pretences and fronts that an art school for teenagers brings. But there's no point in mourning what-ifs. I need to focus on the here and now, and that is the weary and damaged and vulnerable form of Nathan Prescott.

"So," I say. The word comes out thick and clunky, and it makes me feel awkward. The powerful camaraderie we have always shared is no more.

"So," Nathan replies. He wrings his hands together and looks at squirrel chewing at a Rachel Amber poster instead of me.

For the first time we are both being forced to address the chasm that has grown between us.

"Is… is everything cool, Nathan?" Nathan. Not Nate. Already the familiarity is fading like the lingering summer heat.

"Not really, but there's nothing to be done about it," Nathan says. His hand is shaking and I want to ignore it.

But I've been doing nothing but ignoring the ugly truths that have bled through his cracks. I force myself to pay attention – real attention – to him.

"I saw your Everyday Heroes photo. I like it." He says it so quietly I almost miss it.

"You do?" I say and even here, even now, my ego is like a puppy, always on the hunt for praise. I will myself to quash it. This isn't about me. This is about him.

"It's… different to anyone else's," he says. It's bait: a way of derailing the discussion from himself.

I take it anyway. I have exposed a weakness to him and now he can exploit it with ease. "You've seen the other entries?" I ask with acid in my stomach. _Vanity is an ugly trait._

"Jefferson…" Nathan says. "He's a dumb fuck who left his folder on the desk. Didn't even have to try to get a look."

The narcissistic joy is cut short the moment I realise something is off. "Why were you in Mr Jefferson's classroom?" I ask. "He isn't your teacher."

I recall that moment in September. The class rosters were displayed on a board now flooded with missing posters, and I felt an odd feeling as I saw _Victoria Chase_ under the name _Mark Jefferson_ and _Nathan Prescott_ elsewhere.

I realise now that it was relief.

"He wants everyone to enter the bullshit contest," Nathan explains. "And if I wanna actually do well in photography, better him than a deadbeat."

That's probably not the truth, but Nathan has already won in this conversation. "What were the other entries like?" It's not like I'm doing myself any favours at this point, anyway.

"Bland. Amateur," he says. Two girls walk past us, laughing at their phones. Even here, alone with Nathan, the guilt of Kate's video crawls all over me. "But not as bad as Max Caulfield."

"You… you've seen her entry?" I say with too much force than I would like. It makes me sound desperate. Insecure. Talentless.

"What's left of it," he says. "Found it torn up on the floor. No chance of it ever being handed in to Jefferson." He glances down at his hands. "It was just a shitty selfie anyway."

"A selfie?" I say, incredulous and full of relief all at once. "Seriously?"

A laugh comes out. It's sharp and ugly and it makes Nathan flinch. "It's probably why she tore it up," he says. "Now Jefferson will have to pick you."

It feels like a warning, but I brush away my insecurity and paranoia. I've already won.

"I should probably tell you why I was in Max's room."

The statement catches me so off-guard that for a second I stop breathing. I remain quiet and study his face. Trouble and conflict dance over it like a perverse performance. Part of me just wants to soothe the worry away and help him _heal._

But I can't. Not when I will never know what eats at him in the dark moments of privacy. Not when Nathan Prescott's turmoil will be nothing more than an enigma.

"She was… shit…" Nathan has to stop. He grips the edges of the bench hard enough that his hands turn white. I say nothing. "The Principal believed her bullshit story that I had a gun in the girls' bathroom and – he _told…_ "

"What?" I say. "Gun?" And like always with Nathan, the pity dissolves into icy fear.

"It's bullshit, Vic," he says, pleading. "You… you gotta believe me. _Please._ "

I don't. "I do, Nathan. Seriously, why the fuck would you go to the girls' bathroom? Or bring a gun to school?"

The distressed state I found him in on Monday morning tells me otherwise. I can't help but wonder what Max Caulfield was privy to. It's a facet of Nathan he keeps buried from me.

"Beats me," he says easily. It's forced. "The whore was probably pissed that I saw her shitty selfie on the floor. She was probably jealous of the fact that even I can enter a better photo for the contest."

Nathan sighs and looks at his phone. "I've got a baggie in my truck. Mrs Hoida's not in for first period. Wanna blaze?"

"Did you enter a photo for the contest?" I'm shocked that it took me this long to register that.

"Seriously, there's enough for both of us. Seems Frank was feeling generous."

"Nathan," I say, harder. His eyes are bloodshot. "Answer my question. Did you?"

"It doesn't fucking matter," he says softly. "There's no competition. Jefferson will pick you; there's nothing we can do about it now. Anyway, I still have two hours—"

"Stop being so cagey for once in your life. I'm sick of being kept in the dark so please, just tell me."

As always, I don't know I've gone too far until I see the consequences play out in front of me.

" _I don't fucking care about Jefferson and his bullshit!_ " Nathan roars. He slams his fists against the bench and looks at me with a crazed look in his eyes. _Feral_ is the only word that comes to mind.

Standing up and backing away is an automatic response. My heart hammers in my chest, and the reality hits home once again.

Whatever I have with Nathan, it's mercurial, vicious and unpredictable. A delicate dance that will turn frightening after one misstep.

I'm always left feeling that the meltdowns he has around me are my fault.

And that's the flaw between us. I care too much about him and he cares too little about me.

Yet as I look at the tears running down his cheeks, the mercurial dance changes its step again.

But Nathan is the first to bridge the chasm this time. "I'm… I'm sorry," he says. His new favourite word this week. _Sorry_. "I didn't mean to flip out like that."

"It's fine," I say, folding my arms. "Scary as shit, but I get it."

"No, I shouldn't have," he says, instantly more calm, like a switch was just flipped in his head. "You've done nothing wrong, Victoria. You don't deserve this bullshit." Victoria, not Vic. He's forcing a sense of distance for one of our sakes. I'm not sure whose.

"That's obvious," I say. "I thought you said your meltdowns were getting under control?"

"Bad week," he says, as if that holds all the answers. "Real fucking bad week."

* * *

Once, when I was ten years old, I visited my dementia-addled grandmother in a hospice. In her final days, she bounced between sweet and loving, angry and frightening, and distraught and vulnerable like a pinball.

Four hours before she died, she tried to attack her nurse with a knife.

When I look at Nathan, I'm always reminded of her. Crazed, volatile, and vulnerable, and lashing out as the inevitable end closes in.

I'm frightened to think of what could be closing in around Nathan.

* * *

 **[10/08 – 09:00]**  
 **TAYLOR: vic, good news.**  
 **TAYLOR: mom's physio is going great. she managed to walk to the bathroom without crutches. :D**  
 **VICTORIA: That's great to hear, Taylor. You don't need any more bullshit this week.**  
 **TAYLOR: amen. now i can focus on the end of the world without getting dragged down by all this worrying.**  
 **VICTORIA: Watch out Vortex Club, Taylor Christensen is in action. :P**  
 **TAYLOR: haha**

* * *

Grey clouds roll in as Nathan stands up with tear-soaked sleeves. The campus is now alive with action: students hang around, talking, laughing, loving. But one thing is constant between them all: the video on their phones.

If I thought Kate's video had blown up yesterday, then today there's a nuclear explosion. Kate Marsh is on every pair of lips in sight: ripples spreading from Blackwell to Arcadia Bay to beyond.

I'm the source. It's incredible to believe the actions of one person can have such a profound effect. _Too bad you use your influence to ruin lives._

We walk along the path in silence. Nathan sticks his hands in his pockets and I look around. Unlike yesterday, there isn't as much animation. Most of the students seem to be half-dead, suffering the effects Monday night insomnia. Either that, or the snow fucked them over more than anyone would care to admit. I know for a fact that Evan Harris and his repartee of pretentious freaks were out snapping shots until the very last flake melted. I never thought I'd get sick of the sound of a chorus of SLRs, but here we are.

I've done it again. When things get too much, my thoughts retreat to photography and petty high school bullshit. But now is not the time for coping mechanisms and avoidance.

The scratches on Nathan's face have started to scab over, leaving dull red lines rising up from his cheeks. I wonder if they will scar. I wonder if Nathan will care. I wonder about many other _ifs_ that will never be answered.

"I'm a fucking mess," Nathan suddenly says. He laughs. It's a dry, forced sound that borders on the hysteric.

"Look at us," I add. "We were born with silver spoons so far down our throats that they come out of our asses, but here we are fighting against the world." Our eyes meet and we smile. Inch by inch, the rift begins to mend. "You don't get more fucked-up than this."

Nathan's phone buzzes and the moment is cut short just like that. This time I dare to glance at the screen for the few seconds I can. Deep grooves score the surface, making Courtney's 2011 washout look factory-fresh. The power button is gone, leaving a scratched hole where Nathan must press his fingernail into to turn the phone on and off.

The messenger service is pretty outdated as well, but it's still straightforward. Greedily, I absorb the list of contacts. I see _hayden, courtney, logan, zach,_ and _taylor_ first of all. As always, the Vortex Club takes up artificial space; these people mean nothing to him. Beneath _taylor_ is _vic_. Coincidentally, that's where the bulk of the messages are. Four hundred and twenty-two.

He doesn't delete them. I don't know how that makes me feel.

At the top of the list is a contact I barely catch a glimpse of. I see _a_ and _k_ for the first name and _ers_ a little after that. Frank?

Reflexively, Nathan scrolls down. _a k ers_ vanishes from sight and instead a new name appears below _vic_.

 _rachel – 32 saved messages. Last message received 04/20/2013._

He still has her number. I'm staring now but I don't give a fuck. Why would Nathan still have Rachel Amber's number saved on his phone. Try as I might, I cannot wrap my brain around it. Not now.

The hardest part is determining whether to attribute this to the mystery of Rachel Amber or the mystery of Nathan Prescott. Maybe it's both.

By now Nathan notices my staring and quickly pockets his phone. "Just some bullshit," he lies.

I let him have it. "It's cool," I say, forcing myself to bury the curiosity blooming in my mind. "We all—"

"Hey! Prescott!"

"You have got to be fucking kidding me."

* * *

David Madsen comes out of nowhere just to grill Nathan a new one. Halfway through the rant, he thinks to look at me.

"If I were you, Missy, I'd walk on and not look back," he barks, looking at me through furrowed brows. "This one's nothing but trouble and danger."

"Fuck you," Nathan spits.

I point my chin up and roll my eyes as I walk past him. It might not be as overt as Nathan, but the message is still clear. _Fuck you._

Nathan and I meet eyes one last time. But I don't see anger bubbling there. I see fear rising up from the depths.

* * *

I hang around behind one of Mr Jefferson's exhibits – a model framed as a provocative young woman – and fail to ignore the conversation between Nathan and Madsen as they walk by me.

I catch snippets: brief, incomplete snapshots of a larger picture. Pieces of a puzzle, handed to me in no order.

I hear _drugs, Kate, danger_ , and _Rachel Amber._

I decide to stop listening.

* * *

 **[10/08 – 09:19]**  
 **TAYLOR: hey vic. history class**  
 **TAYLOR: u forget? :o**  
 **VICTORIA: Don't worry. I'm not a dense bitch like Super Max Selfie. :P**  
 **VICTORIA: I do have a life outside of you, you know.**  
 **TAYLOR: anyway jefferson second period w/ kate slutmarsh**  
 **TAYLOR: prepare the icepacks because a bitch is gonna get roasted**  
 **VICTORIA: Save something for me too, Taylor.**  
 **VICTORIA: I've got irons in this fire as well.**

* * *

At some point I realise that I genuinely consider Taylor a close friend.

It doesn't really matter considering the rules of the game I'm playing are falling apart.

* * *

History rolls by with ease. The teacher acknowledged from day one that we're all only taking this class to fill up that last timetable slot.

It doesn't stop her from setting us homework. I text Courtney the essay title. She replies with an _I'M SO ON IT VICTORIA_.

Taylor writes _a DILDO is Kate Marsh's Everyday Hero!_ on the side of her desk when the teacher's not looking.

I look on my desk and see _VICTORIA CHASE RIDES JEFFERSON'S DICK CAUSE SHE'LL NEVER BE AS HOT AS RACHEL AMBER_.

My pencil snaps between my fingers. It earns me a stern glare from the front of the class.

I feel my cheeks flush red with humiliation and fury.

Even so, it doesn't stop me from retaliating.

 _RACHEL WAS A LESBO WHORE WITH A FAKE-ASS BOOBJOB_.

She's been gone for months, yet she still torments me.

It always has to be something big and grand with Rachel Amber. Even her disappearance has become an elaborate mystery just begging to be solved.

Part of me still expects her just to show up one day and laugh it off as some kind of Vortex Club prank.

* * *

"I'll be two secs, Vic," Taylor says as we finally get out of History. "Just gonna check to make sure Courtney's not fucking-up the guest list."

"It's cool, Taylor," I reply. "I've gotta get a quick smoke in before Jefferson's class anyway."

"All right," Taylor says with a smile. "See you then."

She skips down the hallway without a care in the world. If only my problems could be solved by a half-hour phone call with my mom.

* * *

My mind wanders to my parents as I stand behind the swimming pool with a cigarette between my lips. Fat droplets of water drip down from above every now and then, threatening to spill over into a full-blown thunderstorm.

Northern Oregon may not be the Golden Coast, but it sure beats Seattle in October. Everything about that city is cold, clinical, and detached.

Mom and Dad have that in abundance. The Chase Space might rake in millions each year, but to them it's a fucking billboard for their failures. They didn't make it as photographers so instead they showcase the successful.

They hope to live vicariously through me. Feel a sick sense of pride when a Chase's work shows up in the Chase Space.

I decided long ago that I will never submit there. I will play the art game, take it by the horns, and win on my terms.

At least, until Blackwell turned from a gateway to success to something else entirely.

I came to kickstart a career in photography. Instead all I've done is spread a viral video and get caught up in the dangerous and unpredictable mysteries of a boy with a past darker than I care to know and the ghost of a girl more radiant than the sun.

Life is fucked-up.

* * *

The smell of cigarettes is non-existent when I re-enter the school building. That at least, is a thing I can conceal. Only Taylor and Nathan know how much I smoke. For everyone else, it's only when I blaze at Vortex Club parties.

I almost trip on a loose sheet of paper as I walk past David Madsen. I don't even need to look to know it's Rachel's poster.

Juliet and Logan look at me as I retrieve my textbook for Jefferson's class. In the span of five seconds Juliet can go from slut of the month to nosiest bitch of the year.

She's all the features of Max and Kate I pick on, but without the vulnerability. Not even the destruction of a relationship can stop Juliet Watson, apparently.

"Go take a fucking picture," I snap once the looking turns into staring. "Print that in your next article."

Juliet merely rolls her eyes and checks her phone for any new messages.

"Just ignore her, babe," Logan says with the finesse of a coked-up elephant.

"Oh my fucking God," I say. "From one jock to the next. Real classy, Juliet. Just be careful with this one; I'd hate for you to get knocked up like our dear friend Dana Ward."

Juliet continues to ignore me. "What the fuck ever," I mutter and return to my locker. Already I itch for a second cigarette.

* * *

"Guess even the Queen Bee can have shitty days," Brooke murmurs as she walks past me into the science classroom, textbook in her arms.

I don't have it in me to dispute the truth. All I want to do is rewind this day back to the start and sleep through it.

I am not looking forward to seeing Kate Marsh in Jefferson's class.

* * *

"Try this angle, Taylor."

"On it."

I enter the classroom to see Dana surrounded by Hayden and Taylor as they snap her image up. Dana looks like a model in the spotlight, Hayden more than likely has a weed-induced mellow buzz going on, and Taylor genuinely looks _happy_.

I would kill to be like any one of them.

"Ah, there you are, Victoria," Mr Jefferson says as he leaves his desk. His camera is on his desk; from here, I can just about make out some kind of black-and-white image on the screen. "You're not late, don't worry."

The thought hadn't even crossed my mind. I'd sooner die than miss a second of Mr Jefferson's class. At least this is something I can enjoy without drama, even for a short period of time. Just looking at him lifts my mood. "Have we moved on to portraiture or something, Mr Jefferson?" I ask, motioning to the scene a few feet away from us.

Mark laughs. It's deep and hearty and warm. "About that? It's not my doing, believe me. In a class full of artists, spontaneous things like this tend to happen. There's just something so… pure, about the way these moments unfold." A relaxed smile sets into his features and it's easy to forget that he's old enough to be my father. "It makes me glad I decided to teach at Blackwell."

"I'm glad, too, Mr Jefferson," I say. "Honestly, this school would be so dull without you here."

"I'm sure Blackwell would be just as charming without me," Mark replies without missing a beat. As he talks, raindrops begin to patter against the window. In this moment, at least, everything feels right.

Until a voice pipes up.

"Um, Mr Jefferson?"

Kate Marsh stands in the doorway. Her face is pale and her eyes are red. She makes Nathan look put together. An arrow plants itself into my stomach. It only took seven minutes to destroy her.

"Yes, Kate?" Mr Jefferson says. All at once his voice softens and the joviality is replaced with concern.

"Um… I need to talk to you about something, if you're not too busy." She sounds even smaller and frailer than usual. It's as if she's on the verge of tears. Her eyes don't meet mine.

"Of course, Kate," Mr Jefferson says. "We still have fifteen minutes before class – Victoria, could you excuse us for a second?"

I'm immediately reminded of a similar confrontation yesterday afternoon. _No, Victoria. Excuse us._

The guilt burns too strong for me to object. "It's fine, Mr Jefferson," I say. I do not acknowledge Kate Marsh at all; it feels like one wrong word will break her beyond repair. "I need to look through my portfolio anyway."

I take a step to the side and watch as Mr Jefferson first shuts off his camera and computer before walking out of the classroom with Kate. I can't bring myself to eavesdrop this time.

Instead, I walk across the classroom, paying minimal attention to Dana as she sits and glamour-poses in the seat next to mine. I'm tempted to tell her to fuck off, but then I see the genuine smile on Taylor's face and decide to let it slide. That girl's been through enough shit; she deserves this one moment of relief.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Kate Marsh.

I watch the photo shoot for a few seconds with a nauseating spike of envy, wishing both to be part of it and to rise above the envy. It's an ugly mixture.

But none of that matters once I feel the hand on my shoulder and panic flushes up my spine like an injection.

Immediately, I swivel around. "Hey! What the—"

* * *

It's Nathan. Of course it would be Nathan. He stands there with a glazed yet alert look to his eyes and the scratch mark on his cheek don't seem to matter to him. He's certainly more lucid than when I last saw him.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you how to greet a friend?" Nathan says with a wry smirk.

"When the hell did you get here?" I ask as I focus on slowing my heart rate down.

Nathan shrugs. "Before you," he says. "You would've seen me sooner if you weren't fucking around with Jefferson."

"What happened to him being the only chance of doing well at this school?" I retort, knowing I can. The wheel of madness has landed on playful for the time being.

Nathan breaks eye contact. "Shit happens," he murmurs. "I kinda just wanna see this place get turned to rubble sometimes, you know?"

"I know the feeling." That is no longer a lie. "It's like we've been caught in a downward spiral of increasingly stupid bullshit."

"Guess they left that part out of the 'Enter the Vortex Club' fliers," Nathan says smoothly and I laugh. It's almost enough to forget the volatile battlefield raging behind his eyes.

Almost. But not enough. I'm not that careless.

"Anyway," I say. "Seems like Dana and Taylor have taken my desk."

"Come sit with me," Nathan says. "Max Selfie hasn't shown up yet, so surely she shouldn't mind if we appropriate her desk for a while, right?"

I follow him as we sit on the desk, and can't help but think how much he sounds like how he did in his email right now.

It's rehearsed and forced and artificial. Whatever's troubling Nathan, he has buried it deep enough that not even I can get a glimpse into it.

I cannot let any of this show on my face right now.

"What the fuck was up with David Madsen, earlier?" I ask. It's probing, testing the waters. Seeing how far I can go right now.

Nathan rests his hands between his legs. "The Neo-Nazi thought I'd turned Kate Marsh to a life of drugs and corruption," he says without a single falter. It makes me wonder how much time he's spent perfecting it in his mind. "Because apparently getting wasted and becoming whore of the night equals total corruption."

If it's not Nathan, everything goes back to Kate. Or sometimes both. "Honestly, he's so fucking paranoid. And nosier than Max," I say. "I've seen him walking around with a camera; I wouldn't be surprised if he takes creep-shots of students or something." This is no longer a train of thought I wish to pursue.

Nathan seems to pick up on this, or shares the sentiment. "I settled a deal for Thursday's party favours," he says. His leg has started bouncing.

"How much?" I ask.

"I didn't have to tap into the Vortex's budget if that's what you're asking," Nathan replies. Even though it's only us, his eyes still dart around nervously. It's a common reflex when discussing Frank Bowers on-campus.

Before the conversation can stagnate, I hear a familiar voice talking to Alyssa at the front of the class.

"Selfie Hoe at six o'clock," I whisper. Nathan stretches his mouth into a smirk.

"Let's fuck with her."

* * *

I would like to imagine that some day, I will surround myself with people who don't get their kicks from making other people feel shittier than they do.

I would also like to imagine that some day, I will be a world-renowned photographer.

Ambition is the greatest poison of all.

* * *

Kate Marsh lets out a cry from outside the classroom. I hear her shoes squeak against the floor and Jefferson call out her name. I choose to hear no more after that.

* * *

"Do you think Max will be pissed we're sitting at her desk?"

"Oh I'm sure she'll report us to the Principal. Like I give a fuck."

It's a performance. A shitty, stilted performance. Max instead tries to initiate conversation with Dana and gets nowhere.

I decide to take a cheap shot. "Or she'll run to Mr Jefferson. Like he gives a shit."

She begins to walk towards the desk.

"Like anybody does. Max is such a little—"

"Shh, I think she can hear us."

Max now stands inches away from Nathan. He smiles and playfully punches my arm. I armour myself and stare at her through the mask of the Queen Bee.

Nathan leans back and looks her dead in the eyes. "Here comes the mysterious Max. Disguised as a pixie hipster." There's a venom to his voice that unnerves me. Now, I have no choice but to play along.

"Like all the other precious twee artists here," I say. It's like turning the valve on my anger. It's just a puff of steam, but the art is in the illusion.

Surprisingly, Max glares right back. "You really nailed me." Hatred and invincibility radiate off her. It's new and surprising and it unnerves me. She looks like she's ready to throw me to the floor and beat me half to death.

I must be stronger than her in this conflict. I cannot give her any ground to stand on.

But, of course, Nathan throws a spanner in the works. "Meow, bring out the claws. I love seeing chicks fight."

I can't help but roll my eyes at the comment. It takes a special kind of effort to redirect it to Max at the last minute. But going by the look on her face, she saw already. I make one misstep and suddenly she has the upper hand in this silent battle. The humiliation seeping throughout me remain hidden, though.

Max just places a hand on her hip and continues the glare. "Right," she says with a barely-suppressed groan. "Can I sit at my table now?"

At this point I have no choice but to concede defeat, or run the risk of this escalating. Not when the wild-card that is Nathan Prescott sits within breathing distance of me.

I leave the table first and look at Max one last time. "Max thought we were going to be buds. Fucking ha ha."

Maybe under different circumstances I would feel shitty about tearing the olive branch extended to me to shreds.

"Assholes," Max whispers as Nathan and I retreat to the corner. It feels like a nuclear explosion was just averted.

* * *

 **[10/08 – 11:00]**  
 **COURTNEY: HEY VICTORIA JUST A HEADS-UP**  
 **COURTNEY: THE VIP LIST IS DONE AND IT FEELS GREAT**  
 **COURTNEY: I LITERALLY CANNOT WAIT. THE END OF THE WORLD IS GONNA BE *THE* PARTY TO END ALL PARTIES**  
 **VICTORIA: That's great, Courtney.**  
 **VICTORIA: I'll go check it out after class.**

* * *

I don't, of course.

The Vortex Club is quickly thrown into perspective in less than an hour.

* * *

The bell rings and Mr Jefferson walks into the classroom. Outside, the rain hammers against the glass. I don't fail to notice that Kate Marsh hasn't come in with him.

All at once a nervous energy fills me. It's not like the gradually mounting sense of foreboding that has been plaguing me this week. This feels like a vehicle hurtling down the road at two-hundred miles per hour, seconds away from a deadly impact.

I blame the snow for fucking with my head. I don't believe in that spiritual crap, but what the hell, maybe the universe really is out of balance or something.

"Okay, I know you love me, but if you're not in this class, beat it."

I'm taken aback by how quickly Mr Jefferson's demeanour has changed. And it has something to do with Kate Marsh. That frightens me.

"Everybody else, please sit down."

I take a seat next to Taylor as Dana, Nathan, and Warren Graham all file out of the room. Jefferson glares at them sternly.

As they leave, he continues. "We have a lot to cover today and so little time as usual."

The realisation quickly becomes apparent. Mark Jefferson is on edge. I've never seen this before. I can sense the unrest throughout the rest of the class as well.

Taylor gives me a quick glance. _This class is going to be hell_.

I raise an eyebrow back. _I want to leave already._

I never thought I would think this about Mark Jefferson's photography class, but if it can snow in eighty-degree heat, anything's possible.

Jefferson begins to pace the classroom. "I see all the usual suspect here," he barks. "Anybody seen Kate Marsh?"

I pause for a moment. Weren't they literally just talking outside?

But Taylor looks at me and I know I cannot pursue that train of thought. Instead, I say, "I think everybody has seen Kate Marsh by now." This earns me a few hollow laughs.

Everybody is feigning interest in Kate's video. A bunch of liars too afraid to get caught out.

"She's… not feeling good," Alyssa adds. Her uneasy tone betrays the concealment. It's an understatement and everybody knows it.

Kate never misses a class. Fuck, she's been acknowledged as having one of the best attendance records in the history of Blackwell.

That accolade's now been flushed down the drain. All because of seven minutes of video footage that she denies ever happened.

"Sounds like you're giggling about a video gone viral," Jefferson continues. He surveys the class with what could almost be a look of irritation on his face. Defensively I cross my legs. "Maybe it involves a student, or a friend."

He just came in from discussing the specifics of the viral video with Kate. It's almost like he's ignoring the fact that it happened to Kate. It makes me feel uneasy for a reason I can't pin down.

Taylor doesn't risk looking at me again.

"I wonder how it would feel to have false images of yourself shot out all over the world for people to judge..." Jefferson breathes in and sits on the desk in the middle of the room. Everything about him is tense and _wrong_ and—

"No smartphones in class, Max! Put that away!"

Even I snap to attention at the way Jefferson raises his voice. It's genuinely frightening.

Maybe Kate Marsh had the right idea skipping class today.

Or maybe Jefferson said something to her that made her run off.

Suddenly I don't want to be here.

"Usually, people need something to judge so they never take a good look at themselves," Jefferson says. "We can thank reality TV for some of that. In the end, we can only blame ourselves for participating…"

I hate how this entire lecture feels like a personal attack on my being. I want Nathan here with me. I want to be alone.

"Speaking of participation," Jefferson says, and I'm acutely aware I dodged this bullet by mere hours. "There are a few souls here who have yet to enter a photo in the contest."

He stops, and glares daggers at the back of the room. "Like Max Caulfield, for example. Who I know can't wait to enter, right?"

Somehow, Max manages to shrink even further into her seat. The bravado and invincibility she touted around me and Nathan is gone. In an instant, Super Max is gone, and Max Selfie withers in her place.

I wonder what Jefferson would do if he knew Max tore her entry to shreds somewhere Nathan could find it. He'd probably make her wish she was dead.

In times like this, Mark Jefferson's harsh expression reminds me that the art world is a bloody and ruthless battlefield. And he emerged the victor.

I don't know why I care. With Max out of the running, I'm guaranteed to win. She's done. That's the end of it.

"I'm sure you read the syllabus like it was a Harry Potter book." Jefferson's tone switches. More professional, but just as biting. "So you must know that today we're studying chiaroscuro – that beautiful word about the contrast between light and dark, the shadowplay that gives photography such… visual power."

Chiaroscuro. I can do that much, at least. I don't even bother looking around the room to see the confusion dawning on the faces of the unprepared. It doesn't feel like there's anything to be gained by starting shit today. Instead I wordlessly grab my textbook and flick to the relevant chapter.

"It's basic yin and yang," Jefferson continues. With every word his self-assured confidence grows. I've always found it sexy. Today, I feel uncomfortable. "Black and white images are effective precisely because of their contrasts."

It doesn't help that a series of _whys_ are reverberating through my thoughts.

Why did Kate end up trying to suck the face off every boy in the Vortex?

Why did Rachel Amber decide to do something irredeemably shitty and then, before risking tainting her reputation, fuck off into the unknown like some ethereal, mysterious entity?

Why is Nathan Prescott like he is?

My life now revolves around these three questions. I know none of the answers are for my ears.

"Although we don't technically "see" in monochrome—"

* * *

And just like that, everything I thought I knew crumbles in front of my eyes.

The rug is swept out from under my feet and I don't resist as I'm dragged into the swirling vortex of guilt.

This is only the beginning. The looming sense of dread hanging over Arcadia Bay worsens tenfold with the realisation that maybe, my perspective has been wholly wrong this entire time.

* * *

Zachary's appearance is sudden but welcoming while I'm still confined to the classroom. "Yo, some crazy shit is going down at the girls' dorm! Check it!"

Taylor looks at me. Hayden looks at me. _Max_ looks at me.

A hundred horrific thoughts pound themselves into my head all at once. My blood runs cold and my heart leaps into my throat.

I can't even bring myself to think it, foolishly believing that if I don't consider it, it won't be true.

"Zachary, do not come into my class like that ever again," Jefferson snaps. But before he's even finished talking, Stella and Daniel are out of their seats.

There's a brief moment where I consider staying in my seat, that leaving this room would be a horrible idea.

I see the anguish on Taylor's face and make up my mind.

My bag remains under my seat as I hurry out of the classroom before Mr Jefferson can object.

* * *

 **[10/08 – 11:11]**  
 **NATHAN: drmjkm**

* * *

It dawns on me that maybe, there's more to these bullshit messages that Nathan sends me periodically.

Now is not the time for deduction.

* * *

"What the fuck do you think's going on?" Taylor asks as we walk down the hallway.

"Beats me," I lie. "Anyway, it's got to be more pleasant than being in Mr Jefferson's class for another minute. Talk about mood-swings."

"He's giving Nathan a run for his money today," Taylor says with an easy smile. I don't like where that leads my thoughts.

We walk by the desk adorned with Vortex Club fliers. It's unmanned. Part of me is glad Courtney isn't here with us. The anxiety is clearly plastered on my face and I don't trust her enough to witness it.

Taylor, however, has earned it. When all else fails, she will be there for me.

Our friendship is something I should treasure more.

* * *

"I cannot believe I left my umbrella inside," Taylor groans as we step out into the pouring rain. In an instant, heavy, fat droplets crash onto us from above. Her cheap make-up won't last ten minutes.

Despite the downpour, it's still quite warm. Inside, though, is an unsettling chill that threatens to make me shudder. "Feel free to go back into Mr Jefferson's classroom by all means," I reply.

"No way," Taylor shoots back. "I'd, like, sooner jump off a building than head back there now."

As we walk by the sign for the dorms, I begin to hear the shouting.

"Maybe Nathan's finally snapped and he's going all Columbine on Blackwell," Taylor says. The rain makes contact with her eyes and thick, black rivulets drip off her cheeks and to the ground.

* * *

The crowd is visible when I pull my phone out again to contact Nathan. I don't even get past the lock screen before the phone almost falls from my hands.

"Holy shit, no," Taylor whispers, her eyes firmly facing upwards.

 _I did this_. A whimper comes from my throat. The raindrops that hit the ground are warm and salty.

* * *

I don't even know why I lift my phone up to the sky and focus in on Kate's desperate, broken form through a rain-blurred lens. Maybe it's my defence mechanism to view everything through a lense instead of facing it head on.

It's not a defence mechanism when I hit the **RECORD** button, though.

* * *

"Jesus," Taylor says. Her voice breaks and I want to turn around and hold onto her but I can't tear my eyes or my phone away from the rooftop.

Maybe this will last seven minutes, too.

* * *

The recording time hits forty seconds when Kate jumps.

I scream and drop the phone to the ground as she hits the floor in a splatter of blood and—

—She jumps and I'm tearing myself through the crowd with my heart in my throat and sobs tearing from my mouth.

I catch a glimpse of Nathan looking upwards with glazed eyes before Kate crashes to the ground.

David Madsen gets splashed with blood and falls to his knees. Kate Marsh is curled up on the floor like a shattered porcelain angel.

I never meant for this to happen. I didn't—

—"Max, I'm in a nightmare and I can't wake up!" Kate shouts in a warbling voice that echoes across the campus. I can barely breathe as I stare through a twelve-megapixel screen.

She takes a step back and my grip nearly falters.

Max Caulfield shouts something from the rooftop that slices through the gloom and pulls Kate back from the edge. Max takes her in her arms and they crumble to the ground together.

I stop the recording.

This, too, was seven minutes.

* * *

I want to crumble to the ground myself. I want to lash out and scream and cry with guilt. But this is not my place to do so.

I vanish through the misty rain as the first wail of the ambulance's siren cuts through the silence.

* * *

My feet take me to the girls' bathroom. In a stall with _MARK JEFFERSON WAS RACHEL AMBER'S SUGAR DADDY_ scrawled across the walls, I go to my knees and throw up into the porcelain bowl.

* * *

I don't know how long I stay in the bathroom for. At one point I decide I should leave.

My trembling fingers only manage to touch the lock before I recoil and sink to the ground. There is nothing dignified about the way I cry as my tears splash against the dull tiled floor.

* * *

 **[10/08 – 12:41]**  
 **COURTNEY: VICTORIA WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?**  
 **COURTNEY: SERIOUSLY TAYLOR AND I FEEL SO FUCKED UP AND WE ALL NEED TO GO FOR A DRINK OR GET HIGH OR SOMETHING.**

* * *

 **[10/08 – 12:55]**  
 **TAYLOR: vic oh my god.**  
 **TAYLOR: i literally just saw an ambulance pull away with kate marsh inside this is so fucked up.**  
 **TAYLOR: if i could go back in time and stop that fucking vortex party from happening i would.**  
 **TAYLOR: i'm such a shitty person. we should have known better. kate didn't deserve this.**

* * *

Neither of them get responses.

I pull apart one of my necklaces and flush the beads down the toilet.

In the space between stalls I see a torn-up piece of a Polaroid showing the back of Max Caulfield's head.

Numbly, I realise this is the fabled selfie Nathan told me about.

I'm not in the right frame of mind to realise something very wrong about the location of the image compared with Nathan's story.

I just end up thinking about Kate Marsh and throw up again.

* * *

It would be utter hypocrisy if I won the Everyday Heroes contest.

I'm no hero. I drove a girl to attempt suicide and hospitalised her.

The true hero at Blackwell is Maxine Caulfield.

I feel admiration and loathing all at once.

* * *

My face is red and I feel incredibly weak as I stumble over to the mirror. My shoe crunches on a shard of glass from the fire alarm in the corner of the room.

I run the faucets and splash my face with scalding water. The polish on my nails runs into the sink, creating a blood-red vortex spiral.

* * *

 **From: Youtube-noreply**

 **Your video 'Vortex Club – October 2013 PARTY HARD – Kate's gone wild!' has been successfully deleted.**

 **To upload another video, follow the link below.**

* * *

 **[10/08: 13:03]**  
 **NATHAN: vic u ok**  
 **NATHAN: that was fukd up shit rite there**  
 **VICTORIA: Nathan, I am seriously not okay.**  
 **VICTORIA: Kate Marsh almost died because of me and I feel like the biggest shitstain on the planet.**  
 **NATHAN: wasnt u**  
 **NATHAN: never u victoria**

* * *

 **[10/08: 13:10]**  
 **TAYLOR: victoria, seriously you gotta crawl out of the woodwork.**  
 **TAYLOR: the police are questioning like everyone and they wanna speak to you next.**  
 **TAYLOR: please respond. i'm worried. :(**  
 **VICTORIA: I'm okay, Taylor. Tell them I'll be five minutes.**  
 **TAYLOR: they're using the english classroom upstairs.**  
 **VICTORIA: Thanks.**

* * *

I don't have the strength to don my armour as I emerge from the bathroom.

I'm a weak, shuddering, pathetic mess. A police officer holds the door to the staircase open for me.

It's disgusting and shameful that I'm the inconsolable wreck here.

* * *

Taylor stands outside the classroom. Her face is white and make-up is smudged across her eyes and cheeks.

Wordlessly she wraps her arms around me in a hug. I let myself sob once whilst in her embrace.

It's the most I allow myself to do.

* * *

"Hello, Miss Chase," Principal Wells says. He sits at the desk and I'm taken aback. He never crawls out of his office for anything. "Please excuse the venue, but the police officers have temporarily commandeered my office." His tone is too easy, but his clasped hands and shifty eyes betray the truth.

The police officer behind him, a man with dark brown skin and greying hair, forces a smile. They don't want me to be uncomfortable.

"I don't mean for this to be awkward, Miss Chase, but we need to get to the bottom of why Kate Marsh tried to end her life on campus."

He says "on campus" and I immediately understand why he cares so much. _Don't want Kate to leave a skidmark on your precious fucking academy, do you?_

"I understand," I say instead.

"Mainly, we need to talk to you about an alleged viral video taken of Miss Marsh during last Friday's Vortex Club party," Wells says. "Several students have come forth claiming that you and Nathan Prescott are responsible. Is this true?"

A second officer, a pale man with thinning blonde hair, a box jaw, and a crooked nose, enters the room. His scowl softens when he looks at me. I dislike him immediately.

"Yes," I say to Wells, ignoring this new addition. "We… I uploaded it, Principal Wells."

"It's always her type," the prick officer says. "Entitled rich girls thinking they're above everything and everyone. This video will just be the start. What else you done, huh? Withholding evidence is a pretty serious offence, Missy." Tears threaten to spill from my eyes until I see his gaze is not on my face but rather on my chest. Stony fury rises up instead.

"I would like him to leave," I say, crossing my arms. "I feel intimidated by his presence."

A sick sense of pride grows in his eyes until the older officer shoots him a sharp glare. "Officer Pire, could you please step outside? This is a delicate matter and we would all appreciate it if the students are comfortable enough to be cooperative."

He slips out of the door. I scowl until he vanishes. _Fucking pig. If Nathan was here, you wouldn't have fucking dared._

I realise with a start that this entire thing is a farce. They're treating it as a scandal. This is just damage control.

"Terribly sorry about that, Miss Chase," the older officer says. "Please, continue."

"All right," I say, adjusting one of my bracelets.

"We would like to know more about this video," Wells says. He leans close and I smell the kind of whiskey Sean Prescott would pour at the tedious events I would accompany Nathan to if only for his sanity. Then again, I don't blame him. "Such as how the decision to post it even came about."

"Okay, the video…" A lump rises up in my throat and I have to swallow it down. "I wasn't going to upload it until Nathan came around and we—" I have to stop myself before I mention the weed and wine. "We got stupid. _I_ got stupid. Oh God I deleted the video and I didn't… she fucking tried to kill herself because of me." I slap away a tear that rolls down my cheek.

"This is a complicated matter, Miss Chase." It's the closest I'm going to get to sympathy. "Kate Marsh attending a Vortex Club party was highly out of character for her. Do you happen to know why she was there?"

"I… I don't know," I reply. "It wasn't until later on that I saw her. She just suddenly started trying to make out with a bunch of guys like she was wasted or high or something. It was the middle of a party, I wasn't thinking when I started to film it. I just thought it was funny at the time." The aneurysm building inside Wells dissipates immediately once I successfully avoid explicitly saying "there are drugs and booze at Vortex parties and yes underage students take these substances on a regular basis."

It's only because Nathan's the go-to for people who are too frightened of Frank Bowers. No matter what, I cannot drag him into this shit above the whispers of suspicion on everyone's lips.

I want him here. I don't want him here.

"Okay, so you don't know why Kate Marsh attended the party, nor do you know how she ended up in such a state," Wells says. Beads of sweat rise up on his bald head. "Is there anything else you noticed or think we should know?"

My mind is cast back to when I stumbled through the halls, still half-drunk on the verge of puking and the figure curled on the floor framed by golden sunlight.

I swallow the bile in my throat. "Yes, actually," I say. I can head my pulse and can feel the blood rushing to my head. Every instinct tells me to stop for some unexplainable reason. "Early in the morning after the party, I found her on the floor outside her dorm room. She didn't look drunk or anything and it was like she was deliberately placed there."

Principal Wells looks at the officer. "This is troubling," he says. "Miss Chase, several other students who witnessed Kate Marsh at the Vortex Club party claimed to have not seen her after eleven. Did you notice her absence as well?"

"…Yes," I say with hesitance. "I didn't notice at first because we were trying to find Nathan, but it must have been around—"

I shut my mouth immediately but it's too late.

"Hold on," Wells says. "So both Nathan Prescott _and_ Kate Marsh disappeared from the Vortex Club party at around the same time?"

My blood runs cold. The implications are clear. _No_. "Yes," I say. "But I don't think—"

"We will have to investigate this further," Wells says. He and the officer share a look that sends a wave of anxiety through me. _Nathan, what have I done?_

"Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Chase," the officer says.

I'm ushered out of the room before I can say any more. Taylor isn't waiting for me in the hallway.

* * *

 **[10/08 – 15:00]**  
 **VICTORIA: Just got out of interrogation. :/**  
 **VICTORIA: Wells and the pigs are dumb shits who now think you drugged and raped Kate or something.**  
 **NATHAN: what? ? i wouldnt fukckin ever**  
 **VICTORIA: I didn't mean to but Courtney and Taylor told them we didn't see you after the party and I couldn't lie to the fucking police, even if you control them.**  
 **NATHAN: o shit shit shit**  
 **NATHAN: gonna fuckn blame it on me**  
 **VICTORIA: That's so fucked-up, Nate. How can they based on the sole fact you and Kate left the party at the same time?**  
 **NATHAN: thx 4 the warning vic**  
 **NATHAN: wells wants me and max caulfield to fucking tell our stories together**  
 **NATHAN: gotta stop the nosey bitch from getting me in the shit**  
 **VICTORIA: Yeah. Be careful, okay?**  
 **NATHAN: btw i didnt hurt kate no matter what anyone says u gotta believe me**  
 **VICTORIA: Of course I believe you, Nathan.**

* * *

I don't see Nathan as I leave the school building. In fact, I hardly see anyone as I walk along the campus.

The rain stopped at some point during the haze between Kate on the roof and the questioning. A butterfly flies past me and is reflected brilliantly in the ripples of a newly-formed puddle.

I ache for the time when my only worries were about whether or not I could take the shot.

* * *

Wordlessly I slip into the girls' dorm.

There's police tape on Kate's door and Stella and Alyssa are crying in the hallway. When I enter my room, I lock the door and slide to the ground.

Here, I let the selfish, bitter, guilty tears flow freely.

* * *

I sit on my bed and consider how I have always had the choice to put a stop to it.

The bitch act was never armour. It's an excuse for my shitty behaviour.

Time and time again, I've made the wrong decision.

Next time, I might not be able to see things get set right.

* * *

I was fourteen when I first made a girl seriously cry.

We were in Seattle and she thought she could impress our Spanish class teacher by showing him the packet of cigarettes in my bag.

That evening, I burned a cigarette against her milky arm behind the bus stop and threatened to ruin her entire life if she ever pulled shit like that again.

She never came to school the following week. I didn't see her again until two weeks before I left for Arcadia Bay. She emerged from a mental health clinic with bags under her eyes and dressed in too many layers for the middle of summer.

Her name was Maxine Amber, ironically enough.

* * *

Even at Blackwell, Kate wasn't the first.

It was Rachel Amber. We were at a Vortex Club party and she was there adorned in grunge chic with her blue-haired "best friend". She was prettier and more talented than me. The kind of young woman I had always wanted to be.

We'd only spoken a few words in Jefferson's class, but seeing her there, effortlessly being better than me in every way set off a fury like no other.

I threw her to the ground and poured a cup of vodka into her eyes before punching and clawing at her like I was possessed.

It was only through the combined efforts of Nathan Prescott and Chloe Price that I got the fuck off her.

The wails of terror come back to me whenever I look at her missing posters.

* * *

I should have known better. I always should have known better.

Mom and Dad have always drilled into me that awareness of yourself, others, and the situation at hand is the only way to succeed.

All the fucking good it did me. I'm too selfish and conceited to ever truly focus and better myself.

Even my chances of winning only rode on Max Caulfield not submitting an entry.

I turn my computer on and print off ten copies of my entry. I tear each and every one up and let the fragments of paper flutter to the ground. Rachel Amber's crumpled-up face is buried under flashes of black and white.

* * *

I start crying again. I don't know how long this lasts for.

* * *

When it stops, I send an email to Taylor. I tell her that we'll be fine once we get drunk off our asses.

Maybe it will. I change my mind when my phone buzzes.

* * *

 **[10/08 – 17:50]**  
 **NATHAN: im done**  
 **NATHAN: max didnt blame me at all thank fuckin god**  
 **NATHAN: said madsen was being a perv w/ a camera and wells suspended his ass**  
 **VICTORIA: I'm glad to hear it, Nathan.**  
 **NATHAN: u ok?**  
 **VICTORIA: Not really.**  
 **NATHAN ur in ur dorm right**  
 **VICTORIA: Yeah.**  
 **NATHAN: hold on**  
 **NATHAN: im coming**

* * *

 **VID201310081129 – Are you sure you want to delete this video?**

These seven minutes were only seen by my eyes. They will never have the chance to snowball like the last video. That won't ever happen again.

* * *

My hands are slick with more tears as the setting sun casts my room in a bronze shine. The inverse of Kate Marsh on that morning.

He doesn't even need to knock. The door was unlocked the minute the first text came through.

Without a word he shuts the door again, walks over to the bed, and sits next to me.

"I did this," I whisper into my hands. Nathan doesn't hesitate to wrap his arms around me and pull me in for an embrace. I let him.

"Don't," he says in a shaky voice. "The shit that brought Kate to the roof? Not your fault." Tenderly he holds my face and looks into my eyes. "It wasn't you, Victoria."

Rivulets of salty fluid cut across the bags under his eyes. There's a desperate whine. I don't know who it comes from.

I touch his shoulders and pull him in as much as he pulls me in. There's the bitter, crushing anguish, but there's also a warmth between us that tries in vain to quell the misery.

He wipes a tear from my cheek. I rest my head in the crook of his neck.

Together, we are more intimately open than anywhere else. We bare our weaknesses to one another. We make each other stronger.

Nathan's jacket smells of old weed and antiseptic chemicals. The red fabric grows dark beneath my eyes.

He runs a hand through my hair. I close my eyes and for just one fleeting moment, I'm transported somewhere else. It's safe and reassuring and everything I need.

When Nathan starts to shudder, I become his pillar. He leans his head on me and our faces become close enough that the torment washes out of his eyes and the world fades away and it's just us, keeping each other afloat in a torrent that threatens to drag us under.

* * *

If you asked each member of the Vortex Club what Nathan and I are, you would receive three distinct answers.

Some would claim we are inseparable friends. Some would claim we are closer than any siblings could be. Some would claim we are lovers.

I don't know myself what we are.

Maybe it's all of the above. Maybe it's none of the above.

At any rate, whatever is between us _exists_ and that's all that matters.

* * *

I only pull away from him when an icy shadow looms over my room.

"What the hell?" I say in a voice racked by tears. I step across the carpet and lean against the window. "Nate, holy shit, look."

Against the vermilion sky, the evening sun is slowly consumed by an eclipsing celestial body. It's mesmerising on a cosmic level that inspire awe and fear.

This time, my camera rests on my desk. The window is lifted up and the phenomenon is captured by my lens for eternity. My breath comes out in white puffs but I don't feel the chill until Nathan lets out a strangled gasp.

"Fuck," he says, dazed. "The eclipse, Jesus shit."

Then he starts crying again. I try to comfort him but he pushes me away and digs his nails into the bedsheets until his fingers turn red.

Only when he silently weeps does he let me hold him. He rocks in my grip, and my eyes drift to the hopeful gaze of Rachel Amber on my floor, frozen forever in that one moment.

I turn his head away from the rest of the room until he surfaces again. "Fuck, it… I…"

"You don't have to explain to me,"I tell him. He looks at me and there is a sadness to his eyes I have never seen before.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "It's so fucked-up."

"Like that matters," I say softly. "We're both fucked-up. We'll just ride out the shitstorm together, okay?"

He nods shakily. But it's enough.

* * *

My life feels like a storm at sea. Waves and currents that threaten to pull me under at every given moment. It might have always been like this, but it might just be that I cannot remember a time when I didn't have to worry about missteps and fuck-ups drowning me.

It's always been sink or swim. It's always been the way I've had to play life's game.

I've always had to go alone, out of the instinctive fear that anyone else would drag me into the abyss and bring everything to a suffocating end.

But now, as Nathan and I cradle each other and the sun is swallowed by the eclipse's twilight, I think that maybe, together, we can weather the storm and make it to the shoreline.


	6. Chaos Theory

It's dark when Nathan finally leaves. A text message he furtively conceals from me sends him away.

He stiffens when he stands in the doorway, and for a split second I think he's going to turn around and sit back down next to me.

Then he's gone.

* * *

 **[10/08 – 22:56]**  
 **TAYLOR: hey victoria. you there?**  
 **VICTORIA: Yeah, I'm here, Taylor.**  
 **TAYLOR: mind if i come see you? i keep thinking about kate on the roof and it's fucking me up.**  
 **TAYLOR: i just need someone to talk to other than courtney or my mom.**  
 **VICTORIA: It's cool, T. I'm in my room. Come see me whenever.**  
 **TAYLOR: thanks. :)**

* * *

Taylor tentatively opens the door five minutes later.

In that time the hours of anguish are buried deep beneath a composed expression and my room is in a pristine condition.

As close as we are, Taylor is not someone I will ever bare all my vulnerabilities to. Besides, my misery has overstayed its welcome.

For once in my life I should put someone else first.

* * *

She collapses in my arms when she arrives. There's a sharp sob and that tells me all I need to know.

"Jesus," she murmurs into my cashmere and I make no attempt to pry her off. "I'm a horrible, horrible person."

I say nothing and run a hand through blonde hair that needs a new dye job. Taylor's never let anyone know what her true hair colour is. I suppose it doesn't matter. That is not a secret that needs pursuing.

"It's fucked-up," I say. "But don't blame yourself, Taylor. Don't you fucking dare."

She pulls out of the embrace and looks at me with reddened eyes. I pretend that I haven't seen her wear this exact same expression every night as she slinks into the bathroom and weeps away from prying eyes. I wilfully ignore Taylor Christensen's troubles and turmoil.

It doesn't escape me that even now, I ooze hypocrisy.

"It's just…" Taylor begins and chokes back a wounded noise. "She was right up on the edge of the roof and she could have _jumped_ and _I_ put her up there…"

"No, you didn't," I tell her. _You weren't the one who got wasted with a boy who has more mysteries than you care to know and decided to ruin someone's life using a seven-minute video clip._

The next words scrape out of my throat in protest. " _I_ put her up there, T," I say. "I filmed the video and put it online even though I knew what it would do." I don't tell her about Nathan and the wine. It feels like an excuse. "If that fucking video hadn't gotten out there, then she…"

Emotion rises up like a beast from the abyss and threatens to drag me below. I breathe through it. "Your only crime is not trying to stop me," I tell her softly. "And even that's not your fault. You had all that shit with your mom to worry about."

"I should have known better," Taylor says. I can feel her emotional ache as if it's my own. In a way, it is.

Our words run dry for a moment, until Taylor makes a pained noise. "I probably look so fucking disgusting right now," she sniffs. Cheap make-up blurs against her skin with a salty glistening. "Like, it's not even my place to be upset. I wasn't on the roof. I didn't want to kill myself." There's a brief moment where I think Taylor is going to be pulled under the waves of grief but she shakes her head softly. The action is clichéd but I don't criticise. As I have learned, it is all too easy to destroy.

"I'm thinking of doing something," Taylor says. "For Kate, you know?"

I raise an eyebrow. A wordless response devoid of denotations but oozing with connotations. The exact moment Taylor selects her interpretation is fleeting but obvious.

"I mean, it's kind of a dumb alpha-bitch-type effort at redemption," she continues, "but we owe her an apology, at least."

I purse my lips, unsure of what to think. Right now, I can't tell if Taylor is being earnest or hypocritical. Or more accurately, which end of the spectrum this action lies on. "I guess," I say. The words feel thick in my mouth. "What were you thinking of?"

"I don't know, like, a card or something?" Taylor says. Hesitance dances behind her tongue. "Flowers? Just… something to let her know how sorry we are."

"I won't stop you," I tell her. Taylor relaxes, as if this is the reassurance she needs. "We did fuck up royally with Kate, and I don't want to go to the Vortex party with the bitter taste of guilt in my mouth."

Taylor smiles with tear-moistened lips. "Awesome," she says. "I'll start tomorrow." She pauses, as if considering something. "Too bad the entire faculty's got the campus on curfew lockdown, or I'd go try and bum some supplies off Mr Jefferson tonight."

"Mr Jefferson's still here?" I ask. A second line of thought runs through my brain like an undercurrent. "I thought he left this evening?"

"Yeah, but he came back," Taylor explains. "He's in the photo lab, fixing up some portfolios and assessing the Everyday Heroes entries. Courtney and I found him a little while ago when she went to hand in her entry – I mean, not like she stands a chance against you, of course. Why do you ask?"

I notice that the realisation dawns on her face a split-second before I open my mouth. "I think I need to take a walk," I say. "If anyone asks, I'm still in my room."

It's surprising how strong an antidote to guilt ambition is.

* * *

The night is sharp and the air is clear. Messy piles of golden-brown leaves gather in puddles, just visible under the dim glow of the street lights.

My shutter snaps the scene and I take comfort in the fact that I am alone.

* * *

I selfishly take a few more photos of the moonlit landscape as I traverse the campus. The air is alive with a strange kind of magic, seemingly in defiance of the grim events that transpired earlier.

The photos are among the best I've taken. I'll never show them to anyone else.

I only stop when my phone buzzes as I pass by Jefferson's exhibition panels. I don't think about how unnerving they look in the limited light.

* * *

 **[10/08 – 23:39]**  
 **COURTNEY: HEY VICTORIA I HEARD THAT YOU AND TAYLOR ARE MAKING AN APOLOGY CARD FOR KATE OR SOMETHING**  
 **COURTNEY: I MEAN NOT THAT IT'S NOT GOOD BUT DOESN'T IT FEEL A LITTLE FAKE?**  
 **VICTORIA: If you have any better ideas about how to say sorry to her, I'm all ears.**  
 **COURTNEY: I'M JUST SAYING MAYBE THE BEST THING IS TO GIVE HER SOME SPACE AND MAYBE *NOT* GET INVOLVED ANY MORE?**

* * *

I don't reply. Courtney is both right and wrong all at once. It forces me to think about how the world is so much more complicated than I ever thought.

I want to hold onto my illusions just a little longer.

* * *

Mr Jefferson is in his office with an open folder on his desk. His camera is on and he looks into the screen with a triumphant smile. It all turns into warmth and charisma and concern when I step into the room.

There is a poster of Rachel Amber on his wall. I divert my gaze.

"Victoria," he says with a weariness that might or might not be real. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"Yes, Mr Jefferson," I reply. I mechanically place the portfolio on his desk. "I know it's, like, really late, but I'm just so bugged out after what happened this afternoon and needed to turn this nervous energy into something productive."

"So, you'd like me to look at your portfolio at midnight, past your curfew," he says flatly.

"Well… yeah?" I say. A torrent of _something_ churns in my chest. In only a few words Jefferson has taken control and dominance of the conversation. For one brief moment it feels like I'm standing powerless against a deadly force. I shrug away the metaphors as a sign of exhaustion. Nothing more.

"You know, I do have the authority to sent you back to your dorm _and_ report you to the principal for breaking curfew," he says, and for one moment there's icy terror gripping my throat. He stares at me, blinks his eyes like a shutter, and then laughs. "Good thing I'm not like most teachers." He leans forward over the desk, somehow still seeming taller than me without leaving his seat. "I have a spare half-hour. Let's take a look."

I show him a few portraits taken over the past month. He offers genuine, if harsh critique that both raises my hopes and makes me feel like a total failure in one fell swoop. I talk openly. He laughs at all the right cues and even lets me catch him off-guard at a few points.

Not once do I get the opportunity to even glance at his camera.

* * *

We move to the photography classroom after he points out a common error I make with contrast on my monochrome images. It's strange to walk through the hallways at night, and even stranger that Mr Jefferson does so despite it being against regulations.

I suppose the fact that he's a trusted faculty member gives him some leeway.

* * *

A year ago, I remember Rachel Amber sneaking out to discuss _her_ photographs with Mark Jefferson for hours at a time post curfew. A thick, hot jealousy like no other used to be my life on those nights I saw her leave.

The night she disappeared, she crept out of the dorms with a small hipster backpack, a DSLR camera and a feather in her ear. I remember thinking for a long time that she decided to have one last photo shoot with Jefferson before fucking off to Manic Pixie Dreamland despite Jefferson's official statement that he never saw her after class that afternoon.

Maybe I'm thinking about her because her ghost breathes in the shadows of the school. Lingering with memory, but not quite there.

It makes me uncomfortable for a reason I cannot describe.

* * *

"And here, you can see the differences between an image on Photoshop, and a picture in print." Jefferson places my photograph on the desk next to his laptop with more force than necessary. The same photograph is open on the screen "I think the problem lies with the fact that you're trying to use a digital camera to recreate the effects exclusive to an instant camera."

He motions to the instant cameras locked up in the cupboard across the camera and I hate how Max Caulfield comes to mind. "Oh, well, it wasn't deliberate," I say as my cheeks flush.

Jefferson smiles and makes me feel small. "Don't worry about it," he says with a chuckle. "We've long learned to associate the composition of the instant film of the past with greatness. It's only natural to want to replicate that when textbooks so sorely lack examples of digital work." Each word is everything I want to hear. I feel myself being pulled along by his voice, but I don't care.

"You are completely right, Mr Jefferson," I tell him. I lean back on the desk with a smile on my face. At least something is going right this evening.

"Seriously, don't sweat," he says. "As you grow and mature as an artist, you'll learn which techniques suit you and which ones hold you back." He shuts down the computer and seems to drink in my joy. For just this moment I let a childish pleasure take over and appreciate him for everything he is.

Then my cigarettes fall out of my pocket.

The atmosphere changes in way I can't describe, but it does. Jefferson straightens his back and his smile becomes shallower.

"Miss Chase," he says and his voice is like knives of ice. "You, uh, you seem to have dropped something."

"Huh?" I say. He nods his head to the side of me. "Oh, shit," I say, scrambling to shove the packet back into my pockets. It's only when I see his displeased stare do I begin to feel the first tinges of panic. "Don't tell?"

He shakes his head softly. It's supposed to be warm but it isn't. "I'd only be a hypocrite if I did that," he says, folding his arms. He gathers up my pictures and returns the portfolio to me. "Anyway, it's getting late, and we can only hang around after curfew for so long."

So that's that. His reasons for cutting the session short make sense, but I can't help but shake the feeling that the sight of my cigarettes somehow did this.

"Besides, I have to begin judging the Everyday Heroes entries now the deadline's passed," he says and an idea worms its way into my mind. It's desperate and ugly but an idea nonetheless.

* * *

The cigarettes fall out of my pocket again as I walk out of the classroom.

I won't notice until I'm reunited with them under much, much worse circumstances.

* * *

My mind wanders to a scene last year, after one of Jefferson's classes. Rachel Amber stayed back to speak with him about something that didn't matter.

I clearly remember the way she flirted and leaned over his desk and made him laugh with a warmth and camaraderie that made the entire world her oyster for that one moment.

I look at Jefferson in the shadows of midnight and I know I must channel that or see all my dreams fall flat.

* * *

Mr Jefferson slides the key out of the lock with a clink. His face is silhouetted by the silvery moonlight that makes him look predatory. He leans out of the doorway and smiles warmly, and lets out a breath.

I leap at the opening like a starving animal.

"Thank you again so much for helping me put together a portfolio," I say. My voice is sweet and receptive. Taylor and Courtney would probably gag if they heard me.

Jefferson turns to look at me, one foot on the steps. "Hopefully the rest of the class will follow your lead," he says. His voice is warm but his expression is clinically blank. I can't tell if it's subconscious or not, but the more he talks, the more his body language projects him as bigger. I cannot let it throw me off. "I'm sorry I was distracted. As you know, it has not been a good day for Blackwell."

An image of Kate Marsh, poised on the edge of the rooftop, worms its way into my head. I swallow back the nausea and look Mr Jefferson in the eyes. "I know this has been an awful day and you can talk to me any time, Mr Jefferson."

Jefferson's eyebrows raise but he doesn't lose his composure. "Thank you, Victoria. I'm just glad it had a relatively happy ending." There's a second meaning behind his eyes but I cannot read it. I choose not to focus on it.

The next words that come out of my mouth are so fake I'm sure Kate Marsh is flinching in her hospital bed out of town. "I don't know what I would have done if Katie jumped…"

Jefferson sees right through my bullshit and gives me a confused look that also manages to serve as a sharp glare. "Katie?" he says. "I didn't know you two were that close… did she?"

I bite my tongue to stop myself from talking about Kate any more. _Remember why you came out here._ "Well… how does this affect the Everyday Heroes contest?" I know I'm losing my footing in this conversation, making too many missteps. Jefferson out-dances me with effortless superiority.

"It doesn't," Jefferson replies more bitingly. I silently praise myself for not flinching, and for not thinking about the agitated hostility in that classroom before Kate's despair dragged us all out to the dorms in the chilling downpour. "The contest is still a go and I still have to pick the winner to best represent Blackwell. I've got all the photos, except one from Max…"

I detect a bitterness to his tone but it takes me a moment to exploit it. _You see, Max has a gift._

Hot poisonous jealousy threatens to clog my veins. _He really does favour her._ But Max Caulfield is _not_ better than me. I refuse to let it be the truth.

"I'll give you a one-word sneak preview of Max's photo," I say before I can stop myself, before I can quell the murderous envy of a girl who takes pictures of herself in class and saves the lives of those I torment. "Selfie."

Jefferson blinks but doesn't seem surprised. He says nothing.

A twinge of panic forces me to spew out the next words without thinking. "Listen, you've seen my entry. You know it's better than that." He folds his arms and I have to tell myself that Max Caulfield doesn't matter. The deadline has come and gone. She didn't enter. I did. Jefferson looks at me with unsettling scrutiny.

"Wouldn't that be so cool to hang out in San Francisco together, Mark?" I say and know I've lost.

"Stick to Mr Jefferson, Victoria. Please?" he hisses and stupidly I envision myself as a cornered animal. "And, uh… I haven't picked a winner yet."

 _Bullshit,_ I want to say. _You picked Max Caulfield, even though she didn't even turn in a fucking photo._

Desperation compels me to grab his arm as he begins to walk away. He turns to look at me with an iciness that threatens to swallow my words before they leave my mouth. "You already love my work, so it's not like you're playing favourites," I say and know this is the closest to begging I've ever been. Shame boils like a mercurial undercurrent ready to blow. "Just imagine if you picked my photo, though. We would have to spend a lot of time together. That could be… fun, don't you think?" I feel like a talentless hack begging for acknowledgement and a horny schoolgirl trying to get into his pants all at once. Neither are what I'm aiming for. _Another failure_ , a vicious corner of my mind snarls.

"I'm going to think you didn't say any of that," Jefferson says and now I catch a glimpse behind the mask. It's a violent anger barely under control, like an attack dog on a leash. He looks at me like I'm dirt for one fleeting moment and I feel my composure shatter like glass.

I reach an arm out and brush his chest. "You might as well choose me," I say and I know how desperate I sound. My mind is stuck on the image of Jefferson looking at me like nothing. Part of me wants to slap him. Part of me wants to melt on the spot. Neither option wins out. That goes to my innate stupidity. "Otherwise I might have to tell people you offered to choose my photo for favours or something." _You fucking idiot._

That strikes a nerve somewhere deep. Mr Jefferson's face twitches for just a moment, a savage kind of anger that makes me think of Nathan in a rage. "As a favour to your future, I'll also ignore that undisguised threat." An icy feeling sinks into my stomach. I want to lash out despite every instinct telling me not to. "This conversation is officially over, Miss Chase. I suggest you head back to your dorm now."

He turns and walks down the stairs without sparing me another glance. My coiled nervous energy lashes out.

"Wait!" I cry. "I only…"

But he's gone. I look again, and Mark Jefferson is nothing more than a shadow sneaking away into the parking lot.

The feeling of failure does not sting and I do not feel tears of humiliation dancing in the corners of my eyes. I do not.

* * *

 **[10/09 – 01:02]**  
 **VICTORIA: Nathan are you around?**  
 **VICTORIA: I need to talk about how much of a complete fucker Mr Jefferson is.**  
 **NATHAN: what?**  
 **NATHAN: victoria fucking christ are you okay?**  
 **VICTORIA: I'm fine.**  
 **NATHAN: thank fuck**  
 **VICTORIA: Anyway he thinks he's so mighty and above everything and looked down on me like garbage because I asked about the Everyday Heroes contest?**  
 **VICTORIA: Seriously, what the fuck. I thought he was cooler than that. He's just pissed off because Max Selfie didn't enter. You know she'd automatically win if she didn't tear her entry to shreds.**

* * *

Seven messages later I realise Nathan clocked out after I told him I was fine.

My phone displays _02:00_ like a beacon in the shadows of my dorm room. A heavy weariness washes over me and I crawl into the sheets, feeling utterly defeated.

* * *

I dream of Kate, of course. I see her fall again and again from the rooftop in a swirling storm of rain. Each time she hits the ground, I'm there filming it and Nathan stands to the side, watching with an expression that teases of countless buried secrets.

At some point my dreams force me on the roof. I feel stripped bare as I perch on the roof and see the student populace of Blackwell looking at me through the droplets.

It's not Max Caulfield who bursts through the doors to talk me down. It's Kate Marsh. She walks as if she's part of a funeral procession and lines of tears paint her face.

When I jump and hit the ground, it's not me but Mr Jefferson taking pictures. My body explodes against a poster of Rachel Amber as his shutter snaps.

Nathan still stands on the sidelines, still watching with an unreadable expression.

* * *

When I wake up, I reread the email from Principal Wells twice before getting ready.

The confirmation that _yes_ , she is alive, and _yes_ , she is in the hospital in a stable condition helps give the weight on my chest some form. It's not gone, but I know at least some of what I'm dealing with.

Nathan remains a shapeless worry on my soul, however.

* * *

 **[10/09 – 07:19]**  
 **TAYLOR: ok but it's actual bullshit that we still have to go to class today**  
 **TAYLOR: like, kate almost jumped off the fucking roof in front of everyone. that image isn't leaving my mind any time soon**  
 **VICTORIA: I know. And the teachers are fucking insane if they think I've done their homework.**  
 **TAYLOR: aside from that portraiture report for mr jefferson :P**  
 **VICTORIA: You know that doesn't count. Photography will never be a chore, T.**

* * *

The report sits on my desk, nine pages of passion printed in black-and-white and ready for academic scrutiny.

I can't think about it without remembering the image of Mr Jefferson slinking away into the dark, looking at me like I am nothing to him.

The only consolation is that Max Caulfield did not enter the Everyday Heroes contest. There are no threats to my success there, at least.

Still, I gather up the report and neatly place it in my bag. At the same moment, the email alert goes off on my laptop. The wheels of life stop for nobody.

* * *

 **From: Mark Jefferson**

 **To: Vortex Club Student Committee (T. Christensen, C. Wagner, H. Jones, Z. Riggins, V. Chase, N. Prescott)**

 **Subject: End of the World**

 **I know that there have been rumours about how yesterday's tragic events will affect Thursday's Vortex Club party, including a worry that the party will be cancelled.**

 **As the Vortex Club faculty representative, I am here to tell you that the party will proceed as planned and to continue to prepare as you have been. This is also a reminder that at ten PM, I will announce the winner of the Everyday Heroes photography competition. Another thank you to all the entrants.**

 **Best of luck, and until Thursday,**

 **Mr Jefferson.**

* * *

As I read the email, I can't help but think, _he's probably already picked a winner_ , before realising that the End of the World is still on.

Despite everything, despite Kate Marsh, despite the reputation that has sprung up following the last party, it's still happening. As if nothing happened at all.

I can't help but wonder if this is in bad taste.

* * *

 **[10/09 – 07:33]**  
 **VICTORIA: At least the party's still on. Did you read Mr Jefferson's email?**  
 **VICTORIA: Anyway, let me know if you've managed to bribe the pigs again and what you're going to wear.**  
 **VICTORIA: We both need to look on-point, and we need to look on-point together.**  
 **VICTORIA: We're the king and queen of the Vortex Club. People need to remember that.**

* * *

Nathan doesn't respond. I don't see why I should be concerned. This week has just been a long train of one-sided conversations. Why should this be different?

* * *

At eight-thirty, I check my class schedule. First period is sociology.

Kate Marsh sits two seats away from me in sociology.

Nausea seals my throat shut.

* * *

 **[10/09 – 08:39]**  
 **VICTORIA: Hey, T. Fancy heading into town?**  
 **VICTORIA: No way am I showing up to sociology after I drove the teacher's pet to attempt suicide.**  
 **TAYLOR: you're ditching? omfg what kind of world am i living in**  
 **VICTORIA: It's not all day. I'm still showing up to Jefferson's class this afternoon.**  
 **VICTORIA: You in?**  
 **TAYLOR: one sec.**  
 **TAYLOR: courtney wants to know if she can come too. she doesn't want to face sociology alone and because she brought all that stuff to the pool yesterday people think she's behind the break-in last night.**  
 **VICTORIA: Sure. Let's meet in the parking lot at nine.**  
 **TAYLOR: awesome. it'll be the three of us girls.**  
 **TAYLOR: let's go. :)**

* * *

Kate Marsh's dorm room does not exist as I walk out of the building.

Police tape does not line the door. Her room has not been transformed into a condemned crime scene.

 _Get well soon, Kate_ , messages do not line the walls. Her slate is bare.

Guilt does not claw at my insides and cloud my vision.

All is completely fine.

* * *

There is a dead bird lying on the roof of my car. It's not bloody or injured. In fact, it looks more like someone picked it up and placed it there deliberately. The morning breeze ruffles the feathers slightly and it's disgusting how grotesquely picturesque it all is.

I hate how my mind pictures Nathan sneaking around and putting dead birds in morbid locations. In this mental image, he holds a camera.

As I awkwardly shove it off with a long stick, I consider texting him about it. Then Courtney and Taylor descend the stairs and smile.

"Hey, Vic," Taylor says, all smiles and easiness. Her mask does not betray the ghosts of quiet, heaving sobs that haunt my room and the dorm's bathroom. "You good?"

"I will be once I can get a breather from this school's bullshit drama," I say. It's the truth technically.

"Amen," Courtney says quietly. Her arms are folded and she has one earbud in. "Do you think people will, like, care that we're gone?"

"I doubt it," Taylor replies. She smiles. "A bunch of people are gonna be AWOL. Alyssa's heading out to see Kate in the hospital, Dana's still holed up in her bedroom and who the hell knows what Nathan does." Her smile wavers for just a moment. "Oh, and nobody's seen Max since last night."

I glance fleetingly at one of Rachel's posters and dismiss the stupid thought. "She's probably gone to shy away from the attention," I say. "There's no way in hell a wallflower hipster is cut out to be the Blackwell hero."

Taylor laughs. Courtney remains quiet. "Anyway," I say. "Where to? I was thinking Starbucks."

"Yeah, that works," Taylor says. "The stationery store's close by as well. You wouldn't mind if I picked up a card for Kate while we're there, would you?"

"Why would I?" I say as we climb into my car. Taylor sits next to me while Courtney sits in the back. "Honestly, the point of that video was _not_ to make her suicidal. We're not bad people."

"Let's hope Kate doesn't think so," Courtney says. I look back at her. Her eyes are planted on her phone.

We don't say much more during the twenty minute drive into town.

* * *

Arcadia Bay feels half-dead in the morning sunlight. Only a couple of cars crawl along the roads. Far too many dead birds line the streets.

Taylor, Courtney, and I seem to be the only people that are any way alive at all in the sparsely-populated Starbucks. There's a girl from Blackwell nursing a steaming cup, a couple with a baby, and a trucker who looks like he hasn't slept in a month. The barista looks like she'd rather be in bed, or she's just dealing with a hangover. Whatever it is community college students do.

"Anyway, I was wondering if we could, like, incorporate all the freaky weather into the End of the World Party," Taylor said. By her feet is a plastic bag full of paper, pencils, and _Get Well Soon!_ cards. "Like, I don't know, dimming the lights at some points to represent the eclipse? I have no idea what to do about the snow, though…"

"Don't you think the technicians are doing enough?" Courtney replies. "The plans have basically finalised since September, and besides, nearly everyone's being funded by Prescott cash."

"Just a suggestion," Taylor says. She looks at me. "What do you think, Victoria?"

"I think that this would be easier to discuss if Nathan were here," I say. Concern bleeds out into my otherwise haughty tone. "Has, like, anyone actually seen him since yesterday?"

"No, sorry," Courtney says. She opens up an app on her phone and directs half her attention there. "Nothing on Facebook…"

"No offence, but looking out for Nathan is like at the bottom of my priority list," Taylor says. "I get he's your friend or whatever, and I still respect him for his cash and connections, but it's like he's turning into a bigger and bigger drama magnet."

I can't argue with her there. I'm not sure whether or not to be ashamed or relieved. "Well, you know," I say uneasily. "He is on serious meds and whatever shit a million dollars can get you from Frank. And the whole Kate thing would freak anyone the fuck out."

"Oh my God," Courtney says, a little too fake, a little too obvious a distraction. "That girl Hayden was into the last party, Hannah or whatever, still has a bunch of shitty selfies from when she was, like, thirteen, on her public timeline. Look."

"Jesus," Taylor says with a barely stifled laugh as they look at an image of a kid with wash-out blue hair and shitty eyebrows. _From one image to the next._

Kate Marsh suddenly feels like nothing more than another spoke in a wheel.

"And look here," Courtney says. "She's actually _defending_ the pictures instead of deleting them. Like, she thinks people will still like her after this, oh my God."

"Man," Taylor says. Both seem uncomfortable but there's a kind of buffer here that there wasn't with Kate. Kate didn't defend herself against the video. This girl is.

This is harmless drama that everyone will forget about after the party. "Tell her she can remain on the VIP list if she shows up in that getup from five years ago. Twee scene is the new twee hipster. Max Selfie, eat your heart out."

They laugh, _we laugh_ , only because we know this won't end with someone on a rooftop ready to end their life. I wonder if it's the fact that it's happening outside of the Vortex Club or if it's because Nathan Prescott is not involved whatsoever.

That is a line of thought I don't want to pursue right now.

* * *

 **[10/09 – 09:23]**  
 **HAYDEN: Hey Victoria I know I don't talk like this normally but u seen Nate? We were supposed to procure some goods after first period and I can't get ahold of him.**  
 **VICTORIA: Sorry, I haven't. And I'm not his babysitter, okay?**  
 **VICTORIA: If you can find a way to get him to reply first time please let everyone know. I've never known someone be this difficult.**  
 **HAYDEN: Haha on it. ;) See u Thursday.**

* * *

Taylor catches the bus back up to Blackwell. She tells us her mom sent her a text and wants to video chat. We all know the real reason but nobody calls her out on it.

And besides, a half-written apology note on the desk in my dorm room is nobody's business but my own. Sometimes redemption must be private.

* * *

I can feel the distance with Courtney when we're alone. She stands in the shade of the building with her arms folded. Her phone is in her left hand, not being used, but there as a reminder that she can and will put her shields up at any given moment.

It burns to think of how during my difficult dancing around Nathan, I've made far too many missteps with everyone else.

Courtney lifts an eyebrow and it falls to me to instigate the conversation. "I think we should talk, Courtney," I say.

She makes a noise that's almost a scoff. "You know, Victoria, I don't think you ever actually think things through, do you?" she says. There's a wistful desperation to her tone that claws at my insides like an ugly animal. "First you blow the entire Vortex Club off because you're, like, worried about Nathan, then you nearly get Kate Marsh killed and still worry about how it reflects on you."

Her gaze is critical and wary. She's sizing me up, unsure whether or not I'm friend or foe. "Look," I begin, but the words swallow up. The truth stings more than anything else.

"No," Courtney replies. "You locked yourself away for hours yesterday because _you_ felt shitty about putting Kate on the roof. Taylor and I went straight to Wells to find out what we could do." She shakes her head sadly. "You only let yourself be seen because the police had to talk to you. Tell me the truth, Victoria: if you could have hidden away without any repercussions, would you?"

I don't know what to say. My face burns with the ferocity of anger, but it's all inward. But my pride is a beast that won't allow itself to be wounded. "Oh yeah, so tell me what the _fuck_ I should have done instead," I say. There's a stinging by my eyes I have to ignore. "Tell me, Courtney, how else I should have reacted after a girl was driven to _fucking hospital_ because I brought her to the brink of suicide?"

"Care more about _her_ instead of yourself, Victoria," Courtney says. I feel her disappointed gaze like a magnified ray of heat. "I want to know; are you going to apologise to her because she deserves to have no more shit in her life, or because you have to clear your conscience?"

"Fuck off," I snarl. Something inside me is twisting and writhing. "You don't get it, Courtney."

"And what am I not getting?" she asks, partially a challenge.

I fail to answer and she turns away. "See you later, Victoria," she says. "I have to go arrange a Vortex makeover for Max; I hope you grow up someday."

I stand there in stony silence and watch Courtney walk down the street and vanish around the corner. Only after checking my phone to see no new messages do I cry.

* * *

It's difficult to drive back up to Blackwell with tears blurring my vision. The car is empty and everything is silent save for the soft hum of the engine and my own desperate sounds.

I don't know who to direct my anger at. I want to blame Mr Jefferson for humiliating me. I want to blame Nathan for ignoring me when I need him. I want to blame Courtney and Taylor for acting like they're above me. I want to blame Kate Marsh for being drugged and ending up on the roof.

I want to blame myself most of all.

A desperate noise crawls out my mouth and I nearly don't see the red pick-up truck swerving by desperately until it's too late.

* * *

The collision, if you can call it that, is light and harmless. Nathan brushes by me, certainly scratching the side, and scaring me into pulling up on the edge of a dirt road that leads up to somewhere.

When I come to a stop I let out a nameless sound and tremble. Knots form and tighten in my stomach and the sun's reflection on the ocean in front of me is disorienting and I just want the world to stop.

Something compels me to look down the road. I see Nathan slow down, see him look back at me, let myself hope.

He just as soon turns away and quickly speeds off. There is a moment where all the air rushes out of my lungs and I can only stare.

* * *

 **[10/09 – 10:59]**  
 **VICTORIA: It's always great to be made the victim of a hit-and-run by your best friend.**  
 **VICTORIA: I also want to know what's so important that you can't even spare the time to make sure you didn't kill me or knock me into a ditch.**  
 **VICTORIA: I am going to be pissed if you don't show up at the party tomorrow.**

* * *

Once I'm steady enough to continue to drive up to Blackwell, my mind fixates on the fleeting glimpse I caught of Nathan's face.

He looked wistful and upset, not unlike Courtney, but there was also fear in his eyes as he looked away.

I just want to hold onto him until everything blows over us and we can carry on as normal.

A small voice in my head that sounds like Rachel Amber tells me that's impossible.

* * *

Blackwell Academy is quiet and dead even though it's lunch hour. I slide into the parking lot and only see a single soul as I cross the campus.

Samuel walks by with a bag full of dead birds, grief painted on his face. He's muttering something under his breath, but he's so earnest in his morning that I can't bring myself to comment. I just keep walking, hoping maybe to escape my own grief.

* * *

Someone's written _WE'RE ALL SO SORRY KATE!_ on the wall outside the dormitories. It's hollow and empty and all I can think is that by the time Kate comes back the message will be gone.

People are upset, but nobody truly cares. Courtney may be right about me, but I'm hardly alone in this sentiment.

I'm just the most hypocritical.

* * *

 _Kate,_

 _I know you hate me and you should but I only want to see your smile again._

 _Please let me know if you need anything._

 _XO_

 _Vic_

* * *

The letter slips in the large card in the common area between a few more _I'm sorry, get well soon_ notes.

When I leave the room, the card has one more signature.

I should say I don't want forgiveness, that knowing Kate's alive should be enough, but it isn't. And I don't think it will ever be.

I can't get rid of my bad qualities. But I can learn when to prioritise.

* * *

I don't even know what class I should have this afternoon. Instead of heading down to the main building, I'm sitting at my desk with a set of photographs sprawled out.

In the middle of the mess is a blurry photo framed in purple. A dizzy and disoriented Kate looks bewilderedly into some corner off-camera. I look, really look, at her.

Her outfit, conservative and smart, is dishevelled. Her hair is partially down and it's not clear how that happened. The worst is her eyes.

They're distant and unfocused, but there's fear written in the reflection of her pupils. I force myself in this one moment to acknowledge the truth.

She was drugged at that Vortex Club party. Someone did this to her, intending to hurt her or worse, and I found it amusing enough to film and turn into a poisonous viral video.

There was a point when she tried to approach me, when her eyes weren't glazed but her speech was slurred. It was a cry for help that I neglected. I brushed her off and watched her get sucked into the downward spiral without a second thought.

I think of tomorrow's party with an unsettled feeling. I think of Kate on the floor outside the dorms again, and I think of Nathan's radio silence.

All I can do is tell myself that it won't be too bad if I leave after Mr Jefferson has announced the winner of the photo contest. When I win I can take the excuse to talk to him and leave without it looking too bad.

 _And potentially leave another girl to get drugged and do nothing about it,_ I think viciously.

Then the world spirals and blurs and the thoughts die in my head.

* * *

It's like I'm plunged into my memories by someone holding my head down.

I feel dizzy and sick as I see myself on my first day of Blackwell, seventeen and naive and thinking the world owes me. I'm holding my camera in my hands and snapping shamelessly with a vigour that would put Max Caulfield to shame.

The blurry form of Nathan walks up and I can only see his red jacket as a warning sign. _Danger ahead. Proceed with extreme caution_.

* * *

I'm sixteen and holding my acceptance letter from Blackwell, outwardly stoic but inwardly euphoric.

My mother looks at me with approval, hair less grey and eyes less tired. "I suppose congratulations are in order," she says. "Even the rudimentary can lead to eventual success."

She's haughty as ever but still orders me a new DSLR camera and even lets a smile ghost itself on her thin lips.

* * *

I'm fifteen and standing in front of my photograph on display in the school hallway, winner of the 2010 Young Artists' Competition. The image is my best work so far but even now I know that it would never be accepted in a gallery.

"Why do you look so miserable, Victoria?" asks Maxine Amber with a strength to her that's long since died. "You won but you look as if you lost."

I round on her with a snarl.

* * *

I'm fourteen and standing in the sterile living room with my parents delivering predatory glares.

"I want to be a photographer," I say as I nervously play with long hair that has long since been cut off. My voice is high and nervous but armed with a new-found conviction. "I thought about it and I really think it's what I want to do."

"Victoria, you know you can't just be an artist because you want to be," my father says. His expression is unreadable and clinical. "Even you know there are unseen rules to obey."

"It matters even less if you have no talent," my mother adds. She looks bored. "If you can show us that you're capable, we'll consider letting you pursue this ambition."

On cue, I present a single photograph. It's a landscape shot that captures the Seattle skyline at dusk that tries to capture my own skill more than anything.

"Unoriginal subject matter," my father says.

"Poor contrast and mediocre framing," my mother adds. "But the potential for vision is there."

It's the approval I've sought after for as long as I can remember. "You'll have to buy your own camera," my father says, an afterthought.

I breathe out a sigh of relief as butterflies dance in my stomach and everything is churning and spinning and—

* * *

—I raise an eyebrow at Maxine Caulfield as she stares listlessly into space.

"I guess she doesn't wanna have an input on the party favours then," Nathan says smoothly. "It's her fault when she doesn't get any weed."

"Don't be a douche, Nate," Hayden says and playfully punches Nathan's shoulder. Maxine is still staring.

I lean in closer. "Hello, are you even listening, Maxine?"

She blinks and looks around like a deer in the headlights until her gaze finally rests on me. She looks at me in confusion and disbelief. "Max," she says like she's not sure what's going on. "Never Maxine."

At least she's back to reality. "I know, sorry, Mad Max. You're not pissed at me, right?" She doesn't reply and instead backs up, her body language tense and unreceptive. I feel my stomach drop. "Right?"

Maxine—Max still says nothing. "Do you want to go hit the girls' potty and smoke 'em peace pipe?"

From under the tree, Nathan looks at her with an opaque expression.

"I think Max is high..." Courtney says. She turns to look at Max with a haughty arrogance. Because, you know, being the main Vortex party planner means you have to be an absolute bitch to everyone.

Taylor seems more concerned. "She's acting like, so weird," she says. "You cool, Max?"

"Nobody listened when I said we shouldn't let her in the Vortex," Courtney says, like it's her club to control.

"Courtney, you don't want anybody in the club," Taylor retorts. She's making it clear she's still not over how few people joined up in September – not a single freshman signed up thanks to Courtney.

Courtney narrows her eyes. "Like, whatever, bitch."

Max takes the opportunity to climb to her feet. I reach out to try and get her to stop, but she speeds away before anyone can do anything, all white and purple and gold in the face of the sunset.

"Sure she's not on something?" Zachary asks.

"No way," I say. "I've been with her all day. We literally took one hit each this morning and that was it."

"Together all day, huh?" Hayden jibes and I have the good sense not to blush.

"She's probably just burned out," I say. "We worked on our Everyday Heroes entries all of yesterday and we were all out on the beach until God knows when yesterday."

Nathan shifts in the shade of the foliage, looking like he's just seen something grim and terrible and bigger than himself. "The entire week's been freaky," he says. "Karma for calling our party End of the World."

The statement carries a weight and depth to it that unsettles me for unexplainable reasons. Perhaps it's due to the nervous twitch and dark rings under his eyes that have been present since last week's party. Max and I left early because she insisted on taking a completely fucking smashed Kate Marsh back to the dorms before she could do something stupid.

In moments like that she reminds me of Rachel Amber. Deep down inside, that thought feels plain _wrong_. More than once people have referred to Max as Rachel's replacement.

Only myself, Nathan, and Mr Jefferson weren't pleased by that comparison. There's just something wrong about people using Max to fill in the hole Rachel left behind. It feels wrong to diminish someone to the role of replacement.

But it also feels wrong to diminish Rachel by touching the gaping wound her absence created.

* * *

The impromptu Vortex Club meeting quickly falls apart. Zachary and Logan go off to harass Juliet and Dana into attending the party with them, Hayden goes off to visit a dirty RV parked by the beach, and Courtney and Taylor walk off, discussing outfits with bladed tongues.

It's just me and Nathan left. We look at each other with a million words that cannot be conceptualised hanging in the air. His blue jacket gives his eyes an icy, dangerous edge. I don't know why I stay; since Max joined the Vortex Club we've drifted apart, engaging in conversations that can be as light as possible given how last year we were stuck together like glue.

Phantom emotions dance around my head and things feel a little less real as I look at him.

"Shit's happened," he says. A meaning flows underneath his words like a river with fathomless depths. "I suppose you're still good?"

"Yeah. I'm good," I say. The conversation is stilted and charged and I don't know why. "So, looking forward to tomorrow's party?"

"Like fuck," he says but the delivery doesn't match the meaning. "It'd be better if the world actually ended before then."

"No way," I say. "I've got too much to do before I die; these big plans require me to be alive."

"Yeah," Nathan says and his words are pained. "You wanna be a renowned photographer, Vic. Fashion, even though your folks think it's dumb."

Then he starts crying. It's not open and desperate like when he has a bad trip or forgets his meds, it's a quiet sobbing synonymous with the type of grief and morning that will never leave you. It's intimately familiar in ways that cannot be expressed.

I don't know why I embrace him, but I do. I feel a strange surge of anger and grief and self-hate swirl up, crest, and break within my mind. I think, _What if we hadn't helped Kate? What if Max wasn't part of the Vortex Club?_ It's unsettling.

In the sunset I feel another twinge of anticipation and waiting, to see what today's grand phenomenon will be.

Nothing comes except for Nathan's quiet, broken sounds. "Hey," I say. "The world's not actually ending, you know?"

"It could," Nathan says. "The world could be torn apart and we'd all die but it wouldn't be too bad."

I don't know how to respond to that. I'm still drowning in emotions that aren't my own, a series of muffled _what-ifs_ that paint a life so different yet so similar.

I use that as my excuse when I kiss Nathan. The touch is tender and confusing and when our lips brush, it feels like two lifetimes merging into this one moment. He blinks in shock but pushes back and I can taste the remnants of weed in his mouth and the salt of his tears and then I begin to cry.

The feeling is so sudden, and it feels like the entire world is mourning. I go weak but my body turns to ice at the same moment. I'm a conflicted torrent and Nathan is a mess but neither of us dares to pull away.

I mourn for Rachel Amber. I mourn for Nathan Prescott. I mourn for myself.

The image of myself being dragged down a vortex spiral appears in my mind and I don't know how to react to it other than knowing that in this moment, I wouldn't be upset if the world crashed and burned.

* * *

It's Nathan, unsurprisingly, who pulls off first. He looks at me with red eyes and a face with lines that no eighteen-year-old should have. "Victoria, I… I'm so sorry."

When he leaves, I don't move, don't try to touch him. I just watch him stagger into the dying light and disappear with the Golden Hour.

I stand there, paralysed, with a thousand different thoughts and emotions spiralling and raging into a uniquely silent brand of chaos.

A bird falls from the sky and I capture the image with my eyes, an organic and ephemeral shutter.


	7. Dark Room

The poolside is loaded with boxes, banners and speakers. Courtney stands with a clipboard, directing people to put things up in her vision.

The End of the World is splayed in blues and greens, like everything is submerged under the ocean. Spirals swirl around the walls like predatory sharks and the music is mainstream and uplifting but threatening, as if beckoning for the sea to rise up and claim Arcadia Bay.

"Look, no—Sarah, those chairs are for the _VIP_ section. God."

"Whatever you say, Courtney." There is no attempt to mask the malice. Courtney assuming the role of queen bee is not something anyone is pleased with. I can't say it's not relieving to be able to relax after the slowly progressing wreck that was last year.

"Like, why are we doing this now?" Zachary asks. Next to him is a patch of golden light filtering through the pool window.

"We've been through this," Courtney says with icy exasperation. "The technicians are here first thing tomorrow to set up the sound system – we need to be done before then." She shakes her head. "And you know how pissed Principal Wells gets when we're here past curfew."

For some reason I imagine someone breaking into the pool in the dead of night. The thought is unsettlingly familiar.

"She seriously needs to tone down the bitch level," Taylor says to me as we stand by the wall. Graffiti reading _MAXIMUM DISAPPOINTMENT_ is sprawled behind us. The nerds' revenge because we took one of their own. Not that Maxine Caulfield would have anything to do with people of that calibre. "I get that she's insecure about fucking with Hannah, but, like, she has no reason to take it out on us."

I hear echoes of something else, of the same words in a different context. I can't shake the feeling that they were directed towards me. "Hey, if she's still a bitch we can just ignore her at the party," I say. "It'll just be you, me, and Maxine."

Taylor smirks. "Don't you mean Max – never Maxine," she says. "She had to have taken something unlabelled off of Nathan."

The image of Maxine taking drugs feels jarringly incorrect, even though I have memories of sitting around a bowl with her and laughing away our woes into a haze of smoke. There are two versions of Maxine warring in my head for dominance – the Maxine I know and love, and a twee, shying version of her. I can't tell which feels right and which feels wrong. "Maybe," I say. "We all have our bad trips."

"I'd like to know what brought that on," says Taylor. "Hey, didn't Max work on her contest entry with Nathan last weekend? Do you think they…"

The thought is so wrong, so out of place, that I physically recoil. "She wouldn't. He wouldn't," I say, even though I don't know why it's so upsetting to think about. The sound of someone dragging a box across the floor bounces around and around on a slowly fading loop.

Taylor steps back into the sunlight. "Don't be insecure, V," she says. "Like Max'll ditch you. She's probably the most genuinely decent person in the Vortex Club."

I remember a conversation I had with Maxine a few weeks back, when my head was cloudy and my emotional dam bursting. Despite the torrent of insecurity and loathing washing out of me, she managed to stay afloat. She took my hands, looked into my eyes with a quiet determination, and said, "I'd never abandon you, Victoria. I don't do that to my friends. Ever."

The words still have a meaning that I can't express, but that feels like something strong and caring controlling the chaos.

 _But what about Nathan_ , my mind whispers.

 _Rachel Amber vanished and took the boy I knew with her_ , I retort. He's growing distant, becoming nothing, an out-of-focus speck on the horizon.

So why does betrayal burn and boil inside of me? _Why did you kiss him?_

The questions are of an intangible form, deliberate in their lack of answers. Ambiguity threatens to swallow me whole.

"You're right," I say and focus on Taylor. Taylor, who has always been a constant since day one, devoid of conflict and drama and a simple but unbreakable camaraderie. I know where I stand with her, always have, always will. "Sometimes I wonder why Maxine even bothers."

"Boredom, extra credit," Taylor offers with a shrug. "I don't know how that girl thinks. She's pretty much a more chill version of Rachel." Her voice catches on the name, betraying an upset that hasn't faded six months on.

I still think about how she promised to show up to that Vortex Party and was never seen again. She was always a star that ignited a roaring jealousy inside me, but beneath that was always a core of respect and admiration.

When I look at Maxine, I see the same qualities but in safer amounts. I look at her and I know she won't get in too deep with drugs and dreams and vanish without a trace.

Still, she walked off and left us like we were the least important things to her – like _I_ was the least important thing.

I worry for her and hurt for myself simultaneously.

"You know, this party looks pretty tacky," Taylor admits like a guilty secret. Her arms are folded in a display of confidence but she still darts her eyes to Courtney before looking at me. "I get why you stepped down, but I miss your vision. You and Nathan were, like, the Vortex dream team."

 _We still are, what do you mean_ , I want to say, but it's the ghost of a phrase from another life.

"We'll make do," I say instead. "The world is ending, right?"

Taylor laughs but the smile doesn't reach her eyes. On the other side of the pool, someone trips and knocks a box into the water. It looks like it's going to float but the weight of the water pulls it down with ease.

I look at it and feel myself sinking beneath the surface.

* * *

Maxine isn't in the dormitories. In the dying light, I try her door. It doesn't budge.

"Max hasn't come back to the dorms since this morning," says Kate Marsh. For one moment emotion rushes up through my body like a tsunami.

"Fucking great," I say. "Maybe you could pray to Jesus to find her."

"You know, Victoria," Kate says, soft but firm. "I think I like you better when you're with Max. She's a good influence you desperately need."

She turns and enters her dorm room. When she walks through the door, I see her lying on the floor by morning light, malleable and vulnerable and carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

I look away with a heavy feeling in my stomach and salty tears clouding my eyes.

* * *

 **[10/09 – 19:53]**  
 **VICTORIA: Nathan, have you seen Maxine? She's not in the dorms and I'm a little worried after her freakout.**  
 **NATHAN: probably needs to get away from this shithole for a while**  
 **NATHAN: and she told u she was gonna see her friend in town tonight i thought youd remember**  
 **VICTORIA: Friend?**  
 **NATHAN: joyce from two whales daughter**  
 **NATHAN: girl in a wheelchair after a car accident fucced her up**  
 **NATHAN: u no basically the reason why max avoided goin there**  
 **NATHAN: sure its not u whos high vic**  
 **VICTORIA: Thanks. Some help you are.**  
 **NATHAN: im sorry**  
 **VICTORIA: I'm just snippy because Maxine's like my best friend and there seems to be a conspiracy surrounding girls too cool for the Vortex Club.**  
 **NATHAN: hope u find her**

* * *

Nathan goes quiet soon after that and I resign myself to an evening alone. I take out my portfolio and browse the photographs, arranging and removing as I see fit.

I consider taking it to Mr Jefferson tomorrow but something akin to bitter shame ripples throughout me.

I try to tell myself that I don't want to disturb him so close to the Everyday Heroes deadline, but for an intangible, cosmically distant reason, I wouldn't mind if I never saw the man again.

I picture a one-sided power play where I'm desperate enough to do anything to win the contest. The thought is absurd. Maxine is going to win. Second place is a bittersweet pill, but one I'm willing to swallow for my best friend.

* * *

In the darkness, I lie with my eyes open. The softest breeze blows through the window to remind me that following the eclipse, the temperature has steadily been increasing. The weather channel mentioned that if we were anywhere else in the world and it weren't October, it had all the makings of a tropical storm.

I try to imagine lashings of rain pounding down on the town, married with heavy clouds and violent winds. In an alien way, the thought gives me comfort.

 _The End of the World._

* * *

 **[10/10 – 07:31]**  
 **TAYLOR: hey victoria. u down to grab some breakfast at the diner?**  
 **TAYLOR: i'd kinda like to avoid blackwell while courtney goes all ocd before the party.**  
 **VICTORIA: Sure. We might even be able to find Max there if what Nathan says is true.**  
 **TAYLOR: whatever you say, victoria "i'm totally not her groupie" chase :P**  
 **VICTORIA: Shut up. I'll be ready in a few minutes.**

* * *

I take twenty extra minutes deliberating over whether to wear a white or purple sweater.

I wonder how differently the day would have gone if I hadn't wasted that time.

* * *

On the way out of the dorms, I run into Alyssa. She stumbles forward, knocking Rachel Amber's otherworldly face to the ground.

"Watch it," she snaps. "Apparently I can't have _one_ morning where the Vortex Club assholes don't ruin it."

"At least the Vortex Club assholes know their way around a dye-job."

Alyssa bristles but doesn't respond to the remark. "You're just overcompensating," she says. "You're just a sad group of losers banding together to make yourselves feel less inferior. Now could you please get out of my way?"

I stand aside. She heads up the hallway without sparing me another glance.

She is nothing but I'm left with a crumpling, tearing feeling in my stomach. I turn and leave as the shadows shorten.

* * *

(Kate's door is immaculate as always. _GO JOIN A NUNNERY_ is scribbled on her slate, but the insult is no worse than _VICTORIA HAS NO SOUL_ or _TAYLOR IS A SLAVE_.)

(There is no police tape. There never has been, and there is no reason why there should be.)

* * *

Taylor sits on a bench outside, all smiles and denim and channelling her inner Californian. I look and feel muggy and desaturated as I sit next to her and I'm made to think of another girl who strived to live in the golden sunlight.

"Good morning, Victoria," she says. "Ready for the End of the World?"

"Week I've had, any excuse to get wasted like tomorrow's not going to come," I reply.

"Is that an invitation for me to third-wheel yours and Max's date?" Taylor says with more daring than she'd show around anyone else. It's a mark of admiration and a reminder that at the start, before Maxine, before Rachel, before Nathan, it was me and her. What we have runs deeper than a world of parties, drugs, and short-lived photographs. It's solid, the foundation both of us can fall back on when the walls threaten to collapse on us and the vortex threatens to swallow us alive.

"More like fourth-wheel," I say. "Or you can go hook up with Nathan and we can call it a double date."

Taylor's face makes an expression I don't want to decode. "Uh, no way," she says. "Nathan's a good source for party favours, nothing else. I don't know what you saw in him last year, Victoria, to be honest."

 _What do you mean, I still care for him, we're still close,_ I want to say, but it's wrong. _I kissed him_ , I want to say, but it feels like an experience belonging to another lifetime.

I don't have to meet her statement. Taylor looks down at her phone and lets out an airy laugh. "Mystery solved," she says. "Max is online, if you wanna sort out whatever yesterday was."

I try to play it casually, like my hands aren't trembling as they unlock my phone at the same speed a shutter snaps shut, like the world doesn't blur out of focus and leaves only me and my phone and Maxine Caulfield at the other end.

In the end, I hesitate. A million words, some mine, some not, rest on my fingertips but don't fill the screen. I instead catch myself looking at Max's profile picture with a feeling I will never be able to put into words.

* * *

 **[10/10 – 08:14]**  
 **VICTORIA: Max, are we cool? Just wanted to make sure since you walked away so fast. Nathan was worried too. If you want to talk, hit me up, k? Love u!**

* * *

The message is marked as _seen_ and something tears at me as the seconds pass by without a response.

* * *

 **[10/10 – 08:16]**  
 **VICTORIA: Max, if you're mad, just tell me, k?**

* * *

Desperation feels like iron hooks in my chest, dragging me beneath the surface of the earth.

* * *

 **[10/10 – 08:18]**  
 **VICTORIA: Silence. So if you want to talk, my door is open. Love u!**

* * *

It's when Taylor puts a hand on my shoulder that I must acknowledge I'm shaking.

"Hey, Vic," she says, softer than any fabric. "Don't worry. She won't be, like, pissed at you."

 _Of course she is. You've always been inferior, a suck-up trying to get praise from someone just as insecure as you. She can destroy your ambition with a single word and there's nothing you can do about it. All it'll take is for you to piss her off just once, and it's all over._

"How can you know?" My voice is strangled and the words scrape out of my throat like stony bile.

"Victoria," Taylor says, more sternly. "She's probably going through a lot of shit right now. You know about her friend, right?"

I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak and let my body betray the barely-maintained calm front.

Taylor looks visibly uncomfortable. "Joyce's daughter's in a real bad way," she explains. "Got in a car crash a couple years back and her spine pretty much snapped. In a wheelchair, completely paralysed. She can't even go to the bathroom." Her voice is quivering and her eyes are unsteady and I know she is seeing her mother after the near-miss of the back surgery. "Max was, like, real close with her when they were kids. This'll be the first time she's seen her, like… that."

Taylor speaks with such force and gravity that I can only nod. "She's gonna be freaked-out and need a friend when she comes around," she says. "You need to look past your insecurities and be that friend, Victoria. Trust me."

In this moment, I no longer see Taylor as the seventeen-year-old girl she was last year, full of naivety and nervous energy as she stares down the double barrels of her future, I see a young woman who has grown steadily into a pillar of support and wisdom and someone I can trust above everyone else. I exist in the shadows she casts, always seen with her, but nothing on my own.

That is all I am. I am the shadow of other people's greatness.

The truth strikes with a sharper finality than anything else.

* * *

We aren't even by the parking lot before Courtney approaches us with a steadily-boiling anger behind her eyes.

"Everything cool, Court?" Taylor asks.

"Oh, yes," Courtney says. "Being locked out of the fucking pool the day of the party is pretty 'cool'. You know what else is cool? Finding out that someone has stolen the keys to the pool as well." She writhes with rage in a way that adds shades of ugliness to her complexion, like an unwanted stain.

"And you think we had something to do with it?" Taylor asks. Her weight shifts as she goes on the defensive. "Really, Courtney?"

"Well, someone has," she says with bitter venom. "And unless somehow Nathan's woken from his drug-coma it was one of you."

Taylor says something else, but time stops and my chest feels constricted.

 _Nathan_.

I don't think I'll ever know why the sudden rush of panic grips me so thoroughly, but a fated external force guides me along the campus with dread like ice pooling in my extremities.

"We need to go to the pool," I say, but my voice is swallowed by the roaring anxiety washing against my mind.

* * *

The sun is low in the sky and our lips interlock with an effortlessness and tenderness that neither of us should possess.

His eyes are on me, conflicted and grieving and savouring every line, every shadow, like he will never see me again.

When the world roars in grief for one moment, he leaves and doesn't look back.

* * *

Courtney and Taylor follow, confused but hesitant.

"What is it, Victoria?" Courtney asks as she leans against the pool doors. The word feels like a photograph on fire, the edges burning and curling in and distorting.

"Nathan," I breathe. "He's in the pool."

"Really?" Taylor says. She's trying to remain impassive, but her body language betrays that she's picked up on the primal terror in the air. "How do you know?"

I cannot answer. My heart just pounds and I want to scream. "We need to get in there," I say. "We have to."

There are images flying by, memories from lives that I have lived, haven't lived, will never live. Colours and contrast bleed into one another and kill the focus, slowly, slowly.

* * *

I don't know how we get into the pool. But Taylor and Courtney are standing by the changing rooms and I am tearing through doorways, from monochrome to full-colour to micro to macro, out of the frame and then back.

There is a lens. Someone is looking through it, framing the moment, but it is not me. It never has been.

* * *

Maybe I break down the door. Maybe it burns and blends and bleeds into a smudge. Maybe it was always open.

But I am through, and thousand-dollar shoes are clacking and squealing against damp chlorine-soaked tiles. There are banners and half-empty boxes and crates of drinks, the skeleton of the End of the World.

"Nathan," I say. "Nathan, no."

* * *

He is part of the decoration, black and white and blue gently swinging from the ceiling. The rope hangs from a ceiling beam, above a ladder that has crumpled and fallen.

It is still and silent and there is no air.

"Nathan," I repeat. There is numbness and below that, a hurricane.

"Oh—Jesus shit, Victoria." A hand touches my shoulder. Could be Taylor. Could be Courtney. Could be Rachel Amber.

His life is summed up before us all, in the shadows of the morning, in the reflections of the pool, in the chasm between his feet and the ground.

"No, you can't," I say. "Don't."

* * *

When the rope breaks and he falls into the water, the world snaps and tears and I tear with it.

* * *

"You'll have to buy your own camera," my father says, an afterthought.

I breathe out a sigh of relief as butterflies dance in my stomach and everything is churning and spinning and I ground myself. I clench my fists with iron resolution and I ground myself.

"They sell good-quality DSLRs for under two thousand online," I say, unsure but more sure than I have ever been.

"That is your judgement to make," my mother says, but it's in her eyes. _This is the right choice_.

"Mark Jefferson, he published a guide," I say. "I think my style is most compatible with his."

Silent approval meets me. "If I have your permission to leave?"

"We will try not to be obstacles in the way of your ambition, Victoria," my mother says. "But we will bring you back to reality if you need it."

I nod and murmur a "thank you" and I turn out of the living room, staring into the unfocused future with my dreams and ambitions as weapons and armour.

* * *

Maxine is not there for me to latch onto when Rachel Amber rips herself out of my world.

I grow cold, like steel, forged forever to Nathan. We are each other's strengths, each other's weaknesses. Our hearts beat in sync and dare the world to defy us.

* * *

"Fuck," says Nathan. There are tears.

I blink twice and I have to push the lump in my throat deep down to places I don't want to feel.

The beach is presented to me through the lens of my camera, all framing and angles and forced artifice. The shapes among the sand shuffle, rise and fall, and mourn as time drags them towards death's inevitability.

We aren't the only ones here, of course; wildlife enthusiasts, confused tourists, and coastguards swarm around the walkway and parking lot by the woods, taking a curious pleasure in witnessing life slowly slip away from giants. Nobody else from Blackwell is here.

There are eleven whales in total along the coast, all masses of blue and white and grey and beautiful in a primal way that nothing else will ever be. A helicopter above plays voyeur, framing them in HD aerial shots that will be broadcast on television for everyone to see behind the safety buffer of their screens.

Nathan leans against the fence separating the parking lot from the beach, just enough that a coastguard snaps at him to get back, but he ignores the woman with a listless gaze.

I think of black binders in his dorm room spilling with monochrome shots of dead birds, road kill, a doe slipping away in the dying light, and consider that the horror masked with contrasts is nothing like the raw _reality_ of watching something bigger than yourself, more beautiful than yourself, suffocate only a few paces away from freedom.

The tears come from a part of me that feels foreign to who I am. It is a core, natural feeling, and I want to grieve in unison with Mother Nature.

"Seriously, kids—back up." The coastguard takes another step towards us, her eyes harbouring steely threats that bring to mind another man in a uniform designated to protect. "You don't wanna see this."

I nod at her on reflex, clamping down on a wild growl in my throat. Something ugly chokes its way out of me.

Her gaze suddenly softens. "First time seeing something like this?" she asks. The waves roll and lap and the peripherals of the ocean spray land on the whales, moistening their flesh enough to keep them from drying up, but not from dying. "They never tell you how hard it is seeing it in person."

"Can't you do anything?" I ask, a question spoken a hundred thousand times in a hundred thousand places. "They're so close to the water."

She shakes her head, muted grief. "Too late for 'em," she says. "Shock and the dehydration are already shutting down their organs. They probably won't even be able to swim if they somehow get back into the ocean."

It's only after she raises an eyebrow that I realise our conversation has been punctuated by _clicks_. "Don't use flash," she says. "It'll frighten them. Least we can do is make it as comfortable as possible."

Nathan doesn't reply behind his lens. He shifts nervously and with deft snaps, immortalises the last breaths of the ocean behemoths. My own camera remains in my bag. I decide I don't want to be here any more.

I wait by the crimson pick-up as gulls scream and wail overhead and the trees rustle with obituary whispers. Nathan doesn't move for another fifteen minutes, and when he silently slides into the driver's seat, his expression is fogged glass.

* * *

 **[10/10 – 09:10]**  
 **TAYLOR: vortex party tonight!**  
 **VICTORIA: Ready to party like it's our last night alive?**  
 **TAYLOR: you know it vic!**

* * *

We return to Blackwell dry-eyed and impenetrable. Nathan pulls up into the parking lot and we sit with the irregular rhythm of the engine's hum.

"The party's tonight," I say, breaking the silence. "Any idea what you're gonna wear?"

Nathan shrugs. His knuckles are white on the steering wheel. "It's gonna be better than anything else anyone's gonna be wearing," he says. He looks through me. "Except for you, Vic. You're gonna look great."

"We have some time," I say. "Want to spend a couple hours coordinating?"

His smile is shallower than the breaths of the whales slowly dying on the sands. "You know it." He turns off the ignition and breathes.

I slide out of the truck and hear a soft vibrating as I plant my feet on the ground below.

Nathan stares at his phone and he mists over again. "Nate?" I say.

He starts up the engine again and reverses out. I watch him speed out of the parking lot and vanish down the road. I feel nothing.

* * *

 **[10/10 – 09:14]**  
 **KATE: Victoria, I just received your letter and it made me smile. I do not hate you but I do wish you could see beyond yourself and use your talents for good. I believe in forgiveness above all else and hope we can be on better terms when I come back. Kate xx**  
 **KATE: P.S. – good luck with the Everyday Heroes contest! :)**

* * *

I do feel something when I stare at the message until my eyes blur and redemption sings like a soured note on the horizon. My feet bring me to a bench outside the dorms and I find myself staring up at the roof and thinking about the tragedy that could have been.

There is an opportunity for a better future hanging in front of me. I grasp it viciously.

* * *

 **[10/10 – 09:51]**  
 **VICTORIA: Thank you. I know I'm stupid and act without thinking and you are infinitely the better person for forgiving me.**  
 **VICTORIA: I hope things can be different when you get back, too.**  
 **VICTORIA: Get well soon, Kate.**  
 **VICTORIA: xx**

* * *

I do not see Nathan fleeing the dormitories until he almost runs into me.

"Nathan," I say. He freezes to a stop, pale and frightened and eyes red from tears and other things. He is glass lined with cracks, ready to shatter at the wrong touch.

There is a moment of calm, where he looks at me with clarity and pools of sorrow. Then something switches and he snarls at me with fogged eyes.

" _STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!_ " he screams and puts his hands on my chest and _shoves_. Saliva sprays on my face like salt-water to the whales and I feel myself fall backwards into the wall. My body collides with brick but I don't feel it.

Something heavy and agonising swirls inside me. Nathan looks at me with white rage, then utter despair, then worst of all, nothing.

I stumble after him as he runs towards the main campus. I only make it to just beyond the dorms before lead weights in my chest pull me to a stop and each breath is a knife to my insides.

He is a flash of red at the corner of my vision, and then nothing.

* * *

There is a moment where I consider falling apart and letting grief and woe swallow me. But I am no longer that person.

"Nathan, wait," I call and sprint after him with my heart in my throat and my pulse in my ears.

* * *

I round on him behind the campus. His truck is in the faculty parking, a red beacon against sedans and SUVs. He hesitates halfway down the stairs and faces me with an edge to his eyes. I flash back to a conversation between Nathan and David Madsen about drugs and Kate and Rachel and put it out of my mind.

"I've had enough of this, Nathan," I say. "You've been acting strange all week and I want to know why." My stance is firm, a brittle creature encased in a shell of opaque glass. Perhaps that's what makes Nathan pause.

"Can't tell you," he says. His voice is low, shaky and dancing closer and closer to true madness. "Really can't fucking tell you."

"Why," I say. "We've been able to talk about all of the other shit and things nobody else will ever know. Why can't you trust me now?"

His eyes ripple like a pond and there's a moment where this could go in any direction. "You need to stay away from me, Vic," he mutters. "It's not safe."

"Not safe?" My blood boils and I want hold him and shake him until his delusions are dead. "What the fuck is there that's dangerous? The Vortex Club is too tame for its own good, and Frank's all bitter and threatening but wouldn't dare hurt a high school student. So unless there's some other threat, I don't see what can harm either of us."

His gaze is distant. He is retreating into himself and I know I will be unable to pull him back. "Look what happened to Kate," he says. Then in a whisper, "To Rachel."

"Rachel?" I repeat. "What do you…?"

"Rachel in the Dark Room," Nathan says, and it's a chant, the words of the damned. An enigma that holds every ugly answer I never wanted to confront.

I put a hand on his shoulder. "Nate, what does that mean," I say. My pulse quickens and my mouth goes dry. "I don't understand."

That is a lie. I begin to understand all too well.

"Don't," he says softly. "Please."

We pause, Nathan awash in turmoil and me, tentatively trying to bring him back. The moment of shattering draws closer with every breath.

I pull in, tender and nervous but sure of myself. Nathan shifts and he looks at me, looks _at_ me, and I see the person I chose to bear all my strengths and weaknesses to a year ago.

Then he screams and everything is thrown permanently out of balance.

"Fuck," he wails. "I didn't want to… I didn't mean to… Kate… Rachel…"

His eyes meet mine and now, now am I privy to the moment the glass shatters.

"Fucking leave me alone, Victoria," he babbles. "Fuck off and don't look back."

"Nathan, I—"

The shock stings more than the slap. I tumble to the ground, the world shifting and pulsing and singing, and watch as Nathan Prescott dies and a cornered animal takes over. He screams more nonsense then runs off, and I am left hollow and aching.

This time, I do not follow him. Birds sing and the wind flows and the world is forever changed.

* * *

 _I am frightened of Nathan Prescott._

It is not the first truth I acknowledge, but it is the hardest.

* * *

I wander.

Taylor finds me by the fountain outside the main building, takes in my blotchy eyes and the red mark on my cheek, and smiles with all the love in the universe.

"We can cover it up, easy," she tells me, rubbing a hand along my shoulder. "It's no worse than when Courtney gets blotchy after taking a hit."

 _Nathan is gone_ , I want to tell her. _Everything I have ever known is falling apart._

"I don't need him," I say, an admission, a confession, a truth.

* * *

When I hear that Nathan was nearly beaten to a pulp outside the dorms, I do not react.

I raise an eyebrow when Taylor says that Max and her friends were involved.

"I hope she wasn't hurt," I say.

"Nah," Taylor replies. "Her geek boycrush Warren delivered the beatdown. She just pulled him off. Nathan's off hiding somewhere now."

A beat of silence. "Do you have another foundation brush?" I say. It feels a little less forced now and I know practice and time will smooth the holes. "I need to look my best for the End of the World."

Taylor beams and I lose myself for just one moment.

* * *

 _Rachel in the Dark Room._

Five words, six syllables, bounce around my head. I ignore them. They do not exist.

* * *

I decide on a peach sweater, soft, the colour of unbruised flesh. Taylor gives me one of her bracelets and I adorn it with a flourish.

"Too bad Max didn't turn up for our party makeover," Taylor says. "She's actually pretty cool behind all that hipster crap."

"Maybe," I say, and that's enough. It feels like the weights on my chest are lifting and I'm slowly but surely rising back up to the surface.

* * *

 **[10/10 – 15:02]**  
 **COURTNEY: HEY IS MAX WITH YOU OR TAYLOR BECAUSE SHE FLAKED ON MY MAKEOVER OFFER.**  
 **VICTORIA: You and Taylor are in the same boat, then. If she shows up tonight, she shows up.**

* * *

 _There are some chasms I cannot fill_.

This truth comes a little easier. I look at Courtney's profile picture and try not to let the guilt leave an impact. Silently I mourn the death of our friendship.

* * *

Taylor and I walk across the campus, tracing paths and seeing sights I once shared with Nathan. It helps, but only a little. I still see his panicked eyes, his despairing trembling and the war behind his eyes. I know it is something I will never escape.

"Rachel in the Dark Room," I murmur.

"What was that?" Taylor asks.

"Nothing."

* * *

Mr Jefferson walks out of the pool doors and slows when he sees me and Taylor. His smile of charisma and artifice appears.

"Victoria, Taylor," he says. "Come to check up on the party?"

"We were just walking, Mr Jefferson," says Taylor. She looks him in the eyes, speaks smoothly, and I see his charm slide off her. "I wanna be surprised."

"Well, times like this I understand why you guys have Prescott funding," he says. There is a laugh. I cannot discern its purpose. "Much fancier than anything I had at high school."

"I'll bet," Taylor says. "Even celebrities have crappy teen years."

Jefferson laughs again. "You don't know the half of it," he says. "Nowadays, youth is something precious. Hold onto it and let it guide you to your destiny." He brushes by us. "And with that piece of corny advice, this old man has to grade some papers. See you girls tonight."

"Can you say pretentious or what?" Taylor says.

I think long and hard why the exchange unsettles me, but I can't focus.

 _Rachel in the Dark Room_ whispers on an endless loop. The voice I hear is Nathan's.

* * *

All over Blackwell, I feel Rachel's eyes on me, gently prompting me to another truth with an otherworldly look.

Her smile is in greyscale. The thought drifts around my mind, but so long as I don't give it words, it will not be true, will not exist, cannot exist.

 _Rachel in the Dark Room, Rachel in the Dark Room, Rachel in the Dark Room._

* * *

I don't see Nathan for the rest of the afternoon. His absence isn't as profound as I'd imagined, like a complete album minus one photograph. Taylor's friendly banter and promises of a night like no other and the conclusion to the Everyday Heroes contest keep me going.

I will never see Nathan Prescott again.

* * *

Dusk is punctuated with light laughs and the false _click_ of smartphone selfies. Taylor wraps an arm around me and our voices are subsumed by a growing beat.

The thrum of the party wraps itself around me like a hook and I feel myself on the precipice between past and future, the boundary between existences.

I push through the pool doors and take the plunge.

* * *

The End of the World is splayed in reds and purples, like everything is bruised by the flames of the sun. Spirals swirl around the walls like predatory eyes and the music is alternative and dark and heavy, as if beckoning for the heavens to rain down and grind Arcadia Bay to dust.

Taylor and I slip into the VIP section with ease. Courtney doesn't meet my eyes as I step through the velvet curtain, her eyes locked on her phone.

"Time to party," Taylor says. Glowsticks of muted hues line her arms and there is an ethereal quality to her when she loses herself to the music in the shadows between the soft glow of the lounge Hayden has commandeered and the harsh lights of the bar.

I do a precursory scan of the scene. Vortex nobodies and somebodies alike announce their presence through their most expensive outfits and hands that aren't quite used to handling drinks and drugs yet.

Juliet and Zachary are as close as you can get to public sex, all soft moans and lingering touches. Dana is here, armed with her new skater boyfriend. Logan stands on the sidelines, watching girls with bitterness and sorrow.

Nathan Prescott is not here.

With this ascertained, I approach the bar and find myself downing a glass of wine in an attempt to wash the bitter taste of the week from my throat.

* * *

The wall above the bar has _KATE WE'RE ALL SORRY_ written on it in handwriting that might be neat when sober.

There's a similar _KATIE WE MISS U_ scribbled elsewhere. Nobody looks at it and Kate's name is on nobody's tongue. There are just bodies, moving and shifting to the music. The stink of weed hangs in the air and already there's a drunk girl passed out.

I swallow another drink and sit perfectly still, alone.

* * *

By the third song and my fourth drink, I've got a pretty good read on the mood of the End of the World.

People are dancing and drinking, but the movements aren't as fluid, the shouts not as loud. It is the type of party that nobody wants to go to, but feels obligated to attend. It is a farce that nobody will admit to, a soulless evening designed to artificially alleviate guilt.

Desperately I open up my phone to find that the time only reads **20:03**.

 _Hold on until the winner is announced. Two hours. You can endure._

* * *

The solution, I find, is to drink and drink. The stuff is cheap and watered down, but I feel my heaviness gradually fade between mouthfuls.

Half an hour later, I actually find the music tolerable and wonder if the mood isn't entirely false after all.

* * *

 **[10/10 – 20:33]**  
 **One (1) missed call(s) from Nathan Prescott**

* * *

 _Here's the ground and there's your feet… and never the two shall meet._

I move among light and shadow in the haze of a smoke machine and other things.

My phone is off and I tell myself that I am not worried about Nathan's absence. He doesn't matter. It's how it's always been. He started out as a rich advantage to exploit, and that is all he is. He was never anything more.

 _I never cared about him._

This is a truth I must force into reality.

* * *

It's among drunk whispers of two moons and an actual end of the world that I find my stride. A couple of girls, wannabe photographers, strike up a conversation. They hang onto my every word, idolise me and make me feel like the top of the world. With every gesture I feel the past few days melt into oblivion, but not enough that I don't think about the possibility of someone else recording another lethal seven minutes.

"Of course you're going to win, Victoria," one girl says. I don't know her name and I don't make an effort to find out. "You'd fit right in in San Francisco. You're, like, way better than anyone else here."

"Oh, I know," I say, and the line between lie and drunk exaggeration is blurred into a de-focused smudge. Vortex spirals swirl and the lights flicker. The pool bounces back and forth between red and black and the only constants are the spirals, looming and ready to attack. "I just really think more people need to appreciate the complex opportunities this contest offers."

Logan takes this moment to insert himself. "Weird to see you without Nathan attached to your hip, Victoria," he says, his words slurred and his breath rancid. I stiffen and scowl.

"I can be my own person, you know," I say.

"Hot," Logan says. I ignore it. "It's just nobody's seen him tonight. You have any idea?"

"Why should I know? He's probably trying to buy more shit than Frank can supply or something." My voice wavers for a moment, high and uncertain. Anxiety begins to lazily churn in my stomach and the strobe lights throw me off balance briefly. It's an instinct I cannot help when I look around the VIP section and feel my heart stick itself in my throat.

Where _is_ he?

* * *

The clock soon ticks over to nine PM and there is still no sign of Nathan Prescott. In the suffocating warmth of the party, I feel cold.

Taylor walks up to me, happy and drunk and just a little bit high. "Nathan doesn't know what he's missing out on," she giggles. "The most Prescott funding, like, ever, and he doesn't even show up? Maybe you were right about ditching him earlier."

"Who needs him?" I say. "There's wine at the bar and at least wine's never freaked me out and scared me."

Arm in arm we approach the bar. I don't want to see Nathan, but part of me twitches in discomfort when his no-show soon becomes the note of conversation among Vortex VIPs. I just want to feel his presence, acknowledge that we can exist in the same space without being pulled to one another.

I do not want Nathan Prescott to become another hollow hole in my being.

* * *

 **[10/10 – 21:01]**  
 **NATHAN: vic**  
 **NATHAN: rakmvcmcmjdr**

* * *

Taylor and I sit and talk and Nathan is still not here. Eventually she wobbles over the edge into tipsiness and decides that dancing until she collapses is how she wants to spend the rest of the night.

I gravitate back to my previous audience, talk about photography and the Vortex Club, and try not to think too much.

 _Half an hour to go._

A butterfly flaps its wings inside my stomach. I plant my feet on the ground and don't let anything break over me and pull me down. I am strong. I will weather this.

* * *

When the curtain to the VIP section moves, my head spins in an act of utter desperation. Something shrivels inside me when I see Max Caulfield in her twee getup talking to everyone in sight with a haunted expression.

I hear her ask the question, "Where's Nathan?" again and again and again. I choose to ignore her.

* * *

It doesn't last. I'm forcing myself into a conversation that doesn't matter when I feel her light touch on my shoulder.

I turn around to look at her and something rises up inside me. "Sorry, Max. Vortex Club members only." My voice is barely controlled and I don't know whether to blame the spilling pot of emotions or the alcohol. I fold my arms, defensive and challenging.

Max meets my eyes with an intensity that nearly makes me flinch. "Sorry, I'm on the guest list," she says. She sounds tired and upset and it's not invincibility she's projecting but a desperate determination. Her expression betrays memories of something dark and violent and it mirrors the expression I wore the first time I realised Nathan was more than a coked-up rich kid.

It's the closest we'll ever get to solidarity. But then I think of her frantic search for Nathan and anger wins out. "I'm taking you off," I say and hope that maybe, this time, she'll yield and leave.

This doesn't happen.

"Go fuck your selfie, Victoria," Max snaps. She is almost trembling. "I don't have time for this bullshit." It's like an arrow to my ego, striking hard and true.

"Real cute, Max," I say, looking down at her but feeling smaller. "And after I apologised to you the other day…" Maybe reconciliation will be enough. Kate forgave me for the video. Max should, too.

Her face twists into something fierce and frightened. "Do you even have a clue what's going on at Blackwell?" she asks. My heart drops and I think of a hundred truths staring at me from just below the surface. "Kate Marsh tried to kill herself in front of you and me… everybody here!"

Her words are a stinging lash. "That's not my fault, Max," I say, waxing into my own form of desperation. "Don't you even try to blame me." _I have delivered more blame to myself than you will ever know_ , I think. And then, _Kate forgave me. That's what matters. Not you, with your petty high school hipster grudges._

Max shakes her head softly. "I don't blame you, Victoria," she says. Her gaze doesn't waver. "But you know Kate had a church group and she didn't party. So why did you send out that video?"

I hesitate as Max succinctly drags every truth to the surface, pins me down, and forces me to confront them. Here and now is the breaking point. "Oh God…" I begin. "I swear we weren't even going to do it. Then we had some wine and got stupid."

My previous resolve crumbles as I remember Nathan divulging the ugly realities of Sean Prescott and my desperation to stop his hurting. The next truth I face is that I cannot ever stop caring about him. What we have is too ingrained and too entrenched to die.

I want him to show up. I want to look into his eyes and sort out this mess once and for all.

"More than stupid," Max says. "It's mean… hateful. Kate never did anything to you." Grief rushes at me like a tsunami but I keep afloat. "And that didn't stop you from taking one last video of her on the roof."

A noise comes from my throat, soft and low enough that Max doesn't comment. "I deleted that from my phone." My voice is shaky, drifting on the boundary between sob and scream. "Maybe I'm not her friend, but I didn't get off on Kate attempting suicide." But in my mind I see Nathan standing at the front of the crowd with a glazed look of obsession. Kate dies in this image. She doesn't. She isn't the focus. "I'm not evil, Max."

"I believe you, Victoria," says Max. She's relaxed, just a little, but the intensity doesn't leave her face and I wonder if it ever will. "But I don't understand you…"

"That makes both of us, Max," I tell her. Honesty fits strangely on my tongue, but it feels right. "I always feel like I have to overcompensate. For what, I have no clue. I'm only here to become a photographer, not president." A year ago, when Rachel's mere existence tore me to pieces each day, I sat down with Nathan and whispered the same words in silence and solidarity.

Max looks sad when she speaks next. He expression reminds me of Rachel. "You have talent, Victoria. You don't have to push people out of your way." Innocent and naive and thinking the world is still hiding one last silver lining from her. It feels like I'm in the past and in the present at once.

"You don't understand," I say, giving a voice to thoughts that have long been ingrained into my very essence, the portfolio of my self. "My parents own a gallery. I know how this art game has to be played… it's brutal."

A hundred conversations in a clinical living room in Seattle rush by. I am there, fighting for my innate optimism, and my parents, silent but ready to remind me of reality when I lose myself too deeply in my dreams.

"No, it's art," Max says. "You don't have to play their way." Her enthusiasm and optimism are so endearing that I let myself be pulled in, if only for a moment.

"On point, Max," I say. "Thanks for admitting again that I have some talent. Not that I think I always do." I don't know why I choose to bear this one weakness, but it's a safe bet. Human enough for Max to accept without asking questions. My other weaknesses remain buried.

"I don't either, but that's the choice you make." Max is smiling and a camaraderie dawns, soft lighting on a photograph.

"Hard to believe, but I don't always make the best choices," I say. "Do you think it's, like, fate we're not supposed to be friends?"

Max considers this, her face light and dark in the haze of the Vortex. "Why the hell not?" she finally says. "We're both into art and photography, both kind of weird and pretentious. If we hung out without attitude, we'd get along fine."

I'm back at a Vortex Club party last December. Rachel is there, staring at me with airy confidence. "I don't get you, Victoria," she said. "We're so alike, why not be friends?"

I think _Rachel in the Dark Room_ and stop thinking about her.

"I almost asked you to hang out," I say. "You said my photos were 'Avedon-esque'. Then I remembered who I was…" Proud and defiant, daring another person to try and be flawlessly better than me in every way.

She may not win the Everyday Heroes contest, but Max Caulfield has won that challenge. "You should have asked me. It would have been cool to compare photo notes."

"Maybe we're too much alike," I say over the roar of the party. I'm addressing Max Caulfield. I'm addressing Rachel Amber. I'm addressing a hundred people who flared up my insecurities through no fault of their own.

"You might be right." Max smiles and for once I feel no hatred. It doesn't reach her eyes but I have enough experience with forced emotion not to care.

"Well, Max Caulfield," I say, "there's still time for you to get into the Vortex Club…"

"I actually hope so, Victoria," Max says, and her face is sad again, as if facing a great inevitability. I think of the tormented face of Nathan outside the campus and I don't know what to feel.

"Why do you say it like that?" I ask.

When Max's expression shifts she does not hesitate. "Victoria, listen to me," she says. Has the gloss preluding tears always been in her eyes? "Your life is in serious danger."

I open my mouth but the words run dry. _You need to stay away from me, Vic,_ murmurs Nathan's voice. _It's not safe._

Max's face is the picture of desperation, as if she's had this conversation a hundred times before and her point still isn't coming across. "Look, I know Nathan is your… friend, but he is truly unstable and dangerous. He did drug Kate at that party so he could take her some place… dark."

 _Rachel in the Dark Room Rachel in the Dark Room._

Pouring a sheet of ice down my back would have been less effective in utterly stealing my breath. "What?" I whisper and battle to regain my composure. "Nice try, Max, but I don't believe you." _I cannot believe you_. "And why would he do that?" _I already know why._

"That I don't know yet," Max admits. "But it was enough to make Kate want to die…" I hear Nathan's voice again. _Look what happened to Kate. To Rachel._ "And I think you're next."

I see myself, drugged up and dying in a ditch with a needle in my arm. I see myself trembling on a rooftop, my life a public spectacle for the world to consume. I see myself lost and confused and weak. I remember the whispers that Nathan brought a gun to school.

I try to imagine him pulling that gun on me, or dosing my drink and filming it, and I can't. Not Nathan. Not me. "Max, that is crazy. Nathan is like one of my best friends," I say. _He would never hurt me._ "Yes, he takes meds, but that's not his fault. His family treats him like a total freak just because he has little meltdowns."

I'm back in my room and Nathan is there crying over a bottle of wine. _He… he beat me the other day._ I want to take Max by the shoulders and shout at her that there is so much about Nathan that she will never know, and I am only stopped because I know just as little about him.

"They're not little any more," Max says, almost pleading, almost crying. "They're deadly. I don't care if you hate me or not, but you have to believe me."

A long-forgotten conversation with Rachel Amber surfaces. I refuse to let it take form, but her doe-eyes, full of desperation and terror, float in my head. It was the most honest I'd ever seen her and I see that same desperate honesty painted onto Max's face.

I let out a long sigh. "You could have been a major bitch to me when I got hit with that paint…" I murmur. "And I deserved it." Max says nothing, her face that of a supporting friend. I stare into her eyes and make the decision.

"Max, I don't hate you…" I say, like a guilty confession that must go. "I actually think you're one of the coolest people at Blackwell. Weird, but cool. You just don't know it yet." I will never be able to say this to Rachel, but I still have the chance to say it to Max. "Maybe I'm jealous because you don't give a shit what anybody thinks. And I do."

Slowly but surely, I feel the truths become less painful to face. All but a select few are opened up and exposed.

The red hand-print under my make-up twinges with pain and I hear Nathan's desperate yells of the damned like a cacophonous fanfare. "To be honest, Nathan has been freaking me out lately." I place the fear I feel but don't try to silence it. "He's not here and I haven't seen him." Absently I wonder if the image of him fleeing me behind the campus was as final as it felt at the time.

 _Rachel in the Dark Room._

"Just make sure you stay away from him and stick close to your friends tonight, okay?" Max says, strong and on the verge of falling apart all at once.

"I'll let you boss me around this one time," I say. "And I have other people I can go to for protection. Thanks for telling me this, Max." I think of Taylor and Courtney and wonder what they could do against a violent and dangerous Nathan. I wonder if it would be wise to even involve them. "If what you said is true… then you be careful, too."

Max's eyes linger to the changing room door that leads out to the dormitories. "I've got my own protection."

"Um, text me if you need anything," I say.

"I will. Thanks, Victoria."

"Au revoir," I say, and when Max walks away, I very nearly try to stop her.

* * *

Mr Jefferson shows up and cuts the music. He stands on the stage, microphone in hand, a haughty predator. My phone reads **22:04** and nobody in the Vortex Club has seen Nathan.

Someone jokes that he's "Rachel two-point-oh" and I wonder if it would be a bad thing if he vanished into the night.

* * *

"Okay, okay, everyone calm down," Mr Jefferson says and every eye is on him. Cheer and applause erupt like firecrackers. "Thank you, thank you… I appreciate it."

Taylor slips her hand into mine and whispers 'it's time'. My stomach flips and for once it's not out of worry.

"I don't want to get in the way of the party, but it's time to announce the winner of the Everyday Heroes contest." The monolith looming above this whole week is now in front of us and it's like the universe is collapsing down on this one critical moment.

Cheering and screaming and for one moment Mark Jefferson looks like a monochrome god. "Before I do, I want to thank everybody who entered their photograph… and everybody who thought about entering."

We're on better terms now, but I still feel a sting of envy when even now, he makes everything about Max Caulfield in an abstract way. I wonder if Max realises it herself.

"Now, this is the most important step in being an artist – sharing your work with the world. All of you represent Blackwell Academy and everything our school stands for. As far as I'm concerned, you're all 'Everyday Heroes'." He is framed by the shadows of the pool, the whites of the Vortex spiral, and the lone drunk cheer.

"The envelope, please…" He creates tension, maintains it, and he has every person in the room hooked. I feel the pull, and I know what the envelope will say, but I still find myself hoping and chanting my name under my breath. "And the winner is…"

He takes the envelope. Opens it. Pretends to read it then faces the crowd. "Oh my, what a shocker… Victoria Chase!"

It's not a surprise but my heart still sings and I still shout, "Oh my God!" Taylor looks at me with a fierce, loving pride, and I climb the stairs to stand beside him. There are cheers and boos alike and I know Courtney joins the chorus of critics but I don't care. Vague, intangible visions of San Francisco float behind my eyes.

Mr Jefferson hands me the microphone with a smile that seems to pick apart my every last quality in his eyes and he retreats to the shadows. "Thank you so much, Mr Jefferson," I say. My voice bounces and echoes and everyone hears it and I let myself think, _this is my victory._ "It was your incredible photography that brought me to Blackwell and I hope I can live up to your name… and fame."

I take a breath and survey my audience. Hundreds of faces look at me, judge me, praise me, and I do not see Nathan Prescott among them. Last week the person who garnered the most attention nearly killed herself. This week the person garnering the most attention is winning a prize. "I also want to thank all the students for being so dedicated in their pursuit."

No reaction. My rehearsed script runs dry and there's an instant where I think I will falter, until I see someone writing _KATE DESERVED BETTER_ on the wall and inspiration and redemption strike me all at once.

"And I'd like to dedicate this prize to Kate Marsh…" My voice goes frail soft and it takes the effort of every muscle to keep me standing there. _Kate forgives you._ "She is the real 'everyday hero' of Blackwell. And I can't wait for her to come back." Silence meets me and I can feel thoughts processing in the blank gazes that come my way. My legs feel weak. "Thank you."

I turn and give the microphone back to Mr Jefferson and begin to walk back down the stairs to the VIP section when the jeering begins, launched by a tactful "You suck, Victoria!".

Courtney boos. It slides past me effortlessly.

 _Kate forgave me._

* * *

Taylor's embrace is gentle and firm. "You were awesome up there, Victoria," she says. "Congratulations."

"Thanks, T," I say. Then, "Nathan didn't show up?"

"Doesn't look like it, thank God," Taylor says. "I heard you and Max talking about him. Something up?"

The music starts back up and our words are shrouded by the beats. "Apparently he's done some weird shit," I say. "Max says there's good proof that he was involved in drugging Kate."

"Man," Taylor says, unsurprised. "My mission for the rest of the night is to put him out of my mind, then… hey, you okay?"

"Just a little overwhelmed," I say. The room suddenly feels small and the air stale. "I'm gonna take a five minute breather, okay? Then we'll party until we fucking drop."

"Hell yes," Taylor says. She smiles and turns and this is the last conversation we will have.

* * *

The air is cool and refreshing outside the party. The night hums and sings in solitude and I let it clear my head as I tiptoe down the steps into the parking lot.

I look up and see the moon's quiet light touching down. But my camera rests in my dorm room on the other side of campus, and I am not quite sober enough for that trek.

In the shadow of a broken street light there is a soft orange glow. Mr Jefferson steps forward with a cigarette in his mouth and I blame the blush on the wine.

"Victoria," he says, walking up to me. "How does it feel to be an Everyday Hero?"

"It's humbling, Mr Jefferson," I say. He looks at me but isn't listening. On some level I see Nathan's listless gaze behind Jefferson's glasses. I refuse to be afraid, though. Mr Jefferson isn't Nathan. Mr Jefferson is safe.

We're walking down the road, towards a dirt path that leads a little into the woods. I don't know when we started walking. "I'll bet," Mr Jefferson says. His voice is soft with an edge to it I can't describe. "You're probably looking forward to San Francisco, aren't you?"

"Like you wouldn't believe, Mr Jefferson," I say. "You'll be by my side as my career finally kicks off."

Mr Jefferson laughs, and I suddenly notice his car parked on the dirt track, away from watchful eyes. My brain sends off a warning signal, but the alcohol slows it and diminishes its significance. "Mind standing by my car for a moment, Victoria? I just need to get something."

I comply, because it's Mr Jefferson and there is nothing to be afraid of. I lean on the hood of his silver sedan as he opens up the trunk, muttering something to himself that I cannot hear. The breeze rustles through the trees and the stillness is captivating

Two alerts are on my phone. Both from Nathan. Fear begins to pool as I first open up the text and only see nonsense sent an hour ago. I recognise some of the letters as part of similar texts received over the past few days. It feels like a truth. It feels like a warning.

I want to know where he is.

The second is a voice message, recorded almost immediately after the missed call. My first instinct is to delete it, but instead I set the phone to speaker and place it gently next to me, black against white.

" _Victoria, I… It's Nathan,_ " the message begins. I do not move and feel a cross between dread and hysteria begin to rise up. " _There's a lot of shit I want to say to you but I don't have the time. Just, just listen to this message, please._

" _Rachel, and Kate… bad shit happened to them that I helped with. I didn't want to, I didn't, but I… I was used._

" _It's Mr Jefferson. He runs it all, drugs girls,_ makes me _drug girls… takes them to the Dark Room and he… his fault why Rachel and Kate… I couldn't…_

" _I fucked up and now he's coming to get me… You're my best friend, Vic. I can't put you through that shit. Never. You deserve more than that, so much more._

" _Just… please, Victoria. Stay away from Mr Jefferson and don't go to that party. I'm begging you, please. And warn Max if you can._

" _I'm so sorry."_

Every inch of my insides turns to ice. Tears drip and flow and terror directs the trembling. I am silent as I grab my phone and slide off the car. My feet touch the ground and I go very still. I make some attempt to process it all, but the shadows dance and the winds whisper _Rachel in the Dark Room_ again and again, finality rising and swelling all around me.

I don't see Jefferson until he is standing inches away from me, needle in hand, his face blank. He is a frightening study in black and white come to life, and I am his prey.

In this one moment, I understand everything with sickening, horrible clarity.

"Well then. The fucker had to spoil all our fun, didn't he?"

Jefferson lunges and I cannot move in time. He plunges the needle into my neck with swiftness and professionalism that betrays how many times he's done this before.

I scream and try to run but my limbs are lead. The floor rushes up to me and I hit the ground but don't lose consciousness. Dried mud and crumpled leaves brush against my skin, tear my sweater, wordlessly condemn me. Jefferson looks down on me like I am dirt, something obscene and repulsive before the lens of his eyes. "Should've stuck to parties and teenage melodrama, Victoria."

A vortex opens below in black and white and red, wraps itself around me, drags me into the earth. I see the stars punctuate the blackness, pulse and flow and blur and sharpen and vanish.

And then I am falling, falling, falling.


	8. Polarized

**A/N:** **Hello. It's been a while since the last update (a long while, actually), but the following almost 30,000 words were not easy to write, both from a creative and emotional stand point, and I hope that the last eighteen months of work has paid off.**

 **I normally don't do this, but I will preface this chapter with a trigger warning as it documents both Victoria's experiences in the Dark Room and Rachel Amber's downfall over the course of Victoria's first year at Blackwell Academy, and ultimately ends where Victoria is left at the end of Episode 5 before Max's final decision.**

 **I will also say that this chapter takes a lot of liberties with the timeline and the structure of Blackwell Academy that just about holds up under the main game's canon, but will likely be contradicted by Before The Storm, so if you are a stickler for following the canon of the games, please consider this fic as an au where the story runs discordant to what has previously been established.**

 **Other than that, please enjoy the chapter.**

* * *

The trip to the bunker comes in muggy, colourless blurs.

I'm asleep then awake then there's a gunshot then silence then driving and I'm floating away.

* * *

Victoria Chase's seventeenth birthday was two weeks ago. She stands outside the gates of Blackwell Academy in a pink jacket, thinking she can pull off a ponytail like it's still 2010.

(This, _this_ , is Victoria Chase. I am not her. I am nothing.)

Blackwell Academy doesn't look like a place of academic prestige or success. It just looks like another high school.

But she is not so dumb as to truly believe that. The century-old brick walls conceal a bleeding heart that will propel her to success. Fame before college. That's the goal. Has been. Is. Will be.

A bird lands on the fountain next to her. Reflexively her camera's out and the shutter clicks, framing the moment as only she can. No two photographers are the same. No two cameras produce the same photograph. _I am unique._

But individuality is nothing without the proper cultivation, she tells herself as she takes a precursory glance at the digital image. The afternoon sunlight enhances the colours, but at the sacrifice of good contrast. Sub-par, as her mother would say. That's the woman's favourite word; Victoria's childhood consisted of hearing her mother utter "sub-par" again and again as she dropped Chase Space applications into the shredder. It has always been a reminder that without talent, you are nothing.

"You can capture the most interesting shot in the world, but if the person behind the camera is flawed, it means nothing," her mother had told her when she was ten years old and held her very first digital camera in her hands. _The photographer and the photograph are symbiotic; without one, the other will fall._

That, she'd heard at a photography lecture when she was thirteen. Delivered by Mark Jefferson himself at one of Seattle's forgettable art schools. She'd only managed to attend because her parents were off in New York signing some deal or other with some big-name magazine. Victoria can't remember what the magazine was about (it shut down in the early months of 2009, three months after signing with the Chase Space) but she is certain it wasn't a fashion magazine.

 _Fashion photography is cheap content, produced for the mindless by the soulless,_ her parents had drilled into her when Victoria had borrowed without permission one of their retired instant cameras for the idiotic idea of snapping shots of a classmate to explore vintage beauty. They'd made her pay for the wasted film with her own money. _It will never be an artist's pursuit._

There's the sound of a second camera shutter. Victoria turns back around to the fountain and notices two things. The first is that the bird has fallen off its perch and is now struggling for its life in the water with tiny wings saturated with damning water. The second is that a thin boy with light hair in a red jacket is pointing a nine-thousand dollar camera right at the animal. She doesn't fail to notice the monochrome lens, either.

(It hurts to see this memory. Oh God, it hurts for reasons I do not want to give voice to.)

"Some kind of surreal penchant for the suffering of Mother Nature's creations?" she says without thinking. The boy freezes immediately and looks right in her eyes. His are pale and alert and unreadable. There's a lurch where she genuinely cannot tell how this encounter will pan out and it leaves her stomach feeling uneasy.

Until he laughs with a smile that is both warm and cold all at once. "Always take the shot, right?" he replies. His voice is full of confidence and a too-neutral accent that immediately places him as someone not native to Oregon. And with that camera, she can only come to the conclusion of rich and mobile. It doesn't take her long at all to recognise the opportunities he could represent. Almost as quickly as she recognised the Mark Jefferson quote that spilled from his lips.

"Here for him, too?" she asks. But it's obvious, because why else would someone with cash and a passion for photography be here.

He laughs again and leans against a lamp post. His body language is relaxed and powerful, like he already owns the place. She considers that it may be forced. "Now I am," he says, and she can't help but clue in on how much isn't said but rather implied. A smirk grows on his lips and her stomach flutters.

All at once she is fascinated and captivated by him. "Victoria," she says, testing the waters. Too uncertain about how he would react to her surname.

He takes her hand and shakes it. "Nathan," he replies. No surname is given there, either.

She knows what he represents to her. She can't help but wonder what she represents to him.

(There is a spiral, a Vortex. It drags and pulls and I don't notice until far too late.)

* * *

The darkness grows bright then dark again.

Someone mutters, "Chloe," all slurred and drugged and hurting.

My head pulses and carries me elsewhere.

* * *

 _My son, Nathan._

Victoria's stomach lurches as her eyes rest on the boy in red two rows in front of her. Time seems to draw to a close as Sean Prescott glows with violent power and Mark Jefferson observes from the shadows.

Second to Jefferson, Nathan Prescott is the most powerful person at Blackwell. Money, connections, power… and she spoke to him without a verbal filter, with a camaraderie better suited to lifelong friends.

This changes things significantly. Nathan Prescott could be of use to her. She may have three years before entering the art game for real, but Nathan could be the key to the head start she's always dreamed of.

Jefferson was hired by Sean, who is Nathan's father. If she can get to Nathan, she can begin to climb the ladder to get to Jefferson and from there, the sky's the limit.

She keeps looking at Nathan and realises he isn't applauding, and hasn't at all. A warped hybrid of curiosity and ambition snakes itself around her insides and sucks her next breath away.

The cards have been dealt. Now it's just a matter of playing them right.

(The cards stack like a house for fourteen months, then they topple down, burying and suffocating.)

* * *

My skin touches against damp wood. It is cold and soft and I want to cry but my body is too dry for tears.

Someone reaches to the ground, lifts it up, and I stop looking.

* * *

 _INTRODUCTION TO PHOTOGRAPHY B – MARK JEFFERSON (SEPTEMBER 2012 – MAY 2013)_

 _AMBER, RACHEL_  
CHASE, VICTORIA  
CHRISTENSEN, TAYLOR  
HARRIS, EVAN  
PARKER, LUKE  
PRESCOTT, NATHAN  
WAGNER, COURTNEY  
WEAVER, MEGAN

Victoria clenches the thin white sheet of paper between her knuckles and commits every printed letter to memory. She gazes out to the sea of freshman stumbling along campus, vehemently denying that they are lost with every heartbeat, and tries to envision the seven other students, tries to tell herself already that they are inferior and this will be an easy win compared to the cruel regimes of the Chase Space.

Nathan Prescott's red jacket flashes like a flag in a sea of pastel and monochrome and she doesn't see another student. She sees money. She sees influence.

She sees a fast pass to success.

(She doesn't see the girl with golden hair and feather in her ear standing behind her, doesn't see how her carefully constructed act will soon mean nothing.)

(By the time the name Rachel Amber means something to her, the shining ambition she entered the game with will be faded and tainted, overexposed by her glow.)

(It offers no comfort to know that even the brightest glow will be crushed by shadow.)

* * *

There are chemicals up my nose and down my throat and in my lungs. Maybe I throw up.

A hand rests on my cheek. It is harsh and fast and this red mark will be larger than the blow Nathan dealt.

I think of Nathan and I am swallowed by the aching in my heart. It is a carnivorous beast and I offer no defence against it.

* * *

Seeing the _Prescott Dormitory_ plaque drags a haughty scoff from Victoria's bubblegum-pink lips, because _of course_ Sean Prescott's narcissism wouldn't let him leave the school unmarked. She supposes it's no worse than the Prescott coat of harms hanging opaquely in the middle of the library as an eyesore and reminder that Blackwell is his hostage.

The plaque looks golden but it's just painted bronze, a technique she recognises from hours of watching her parents set up frames at the Chase Space. To the untrained eye, it's convincing enough, until the next bout of heavy rainfall that attacks the shine, piece by piece.

She wonders what Nathan thinks of it, wonders if he'll even be staying at the dorms or in his mansion on the other side of town. The rooms are larger than the standard college dorms, but it's probably the payoff for having to live in the stifling atmosphere of high school for an extra year.

Victoria tries to picture someone with Prescott money staying in any one of the uniform dorm rooms, trying to exist with more space than they have. Then she remembers that her room, too, is a downgrade from Seattle, and vows not to make any more presumptions.

There is a girl standing by the steps, gazing into her phone and trying to construct the façade that she is not completely alone and feeling vulnerable because of it. Her hair is blonde and falls to her shoulders in a way that makes Victoria think it's been straightened. The girl's roots are darker, but her natural colour is an enigma.

"At least _you're_ not walking around like you already know the place," Victoria says to her. The girl looks at her with a bitchy expression that softens when she sees the thousand-dollar label and the jewellery and Victoria can already tell exactly what kind of person she is.

"Like, I'm not trying to be someone I'm not," she says, a reply, a challenge, an offer. She is a subordinate looking for her new number one. "I have _some_ class."

"I get it," Victoria says. "There's nothing to gain from trying to fake it 'til you make it if you don't know what you're faking."

"I'm Taylor," she says, eyes dancing with approval and admiration. The sun is in the sky, it is warm, and Victoria feels the smallest victory blossom in her heart.

"Victoria," she says. The towering mass of the Prescott Dormitory hangs over them, but they aren't swallowed by its shadow yet.

(Taylor is something steady and precious that Victoria will not appreciate until the waves have claimed her and she is drowning in shadows of her own making.)

* * *

 _clickclickclickclickclick_

Limbs move without my consent or accord. I stand I sit I kneel I lie.

Detonations erupt in my head and everything is white and edged with blades.

"This is what you get for trying to play gold-digging slut, Victoria." The voice is steady and armed and when I start crying the pain pushes me back out of reality.

* * *

 _Enter the Vortex Club_ is plastered on every wall, every surface of Blackwell, an innocuous spiral that promises to be so much more. _Meeting today in room 209 at 17:00._ Victoria pockets a leaflet and wonders what it's worth.

She meets Nathan outside Jefferson's room, fifteen minutes before class. He wears a light grey sweater over a white button-up. Victoria sees her own armour of cashmere mirrored back at her.

"See you're here early, too," he says. A matter-of-fact statement, like someone wading in the shallows before taking to the deep end. Victoria looks at the door. "He isn't here yet."

"Oh." Her face goes warm but it is _not_ shame, _cannot be shame_. "So much for a man devoted to his craft."

Nathan laughs. It is scraping and somehow manages to intensify both their anxieties. "Fucking hipsters," he says, equally mirth and equally something else. Like a porcelain blade.

"I get that being aloof is, like, _à la mode_ , or whatever, but it's not really inspiring in a teacher." Her words are carefully chosen after internal assessment, a manipulated lens in which to portray her views, her self, to Nathan.

"Not here for Jefferson, though," Nathan says. He leans against the wall, anathema to the image of the affluent heir to the Prescott fortune that surrounds him like a swarm of insects. "It's what he offers that matters."

Victoria thinks of a bookshelf in Seattle filled with portfolios and pocket books signed _Mark Jefferson_ and disregards them. The game is haughty and aloof and ambitious in a way that hides but doesn't erase insecurity. That is her angle. That is the way she must move. "It says it all when the students are more devoted than their teacher."

"Yeah," Nathan says. He shoves his hands in his pockets and blinks down a tidal wave behind his eyes. "Funny."

(He holds it back but not for long, not for good. The floodgates will burst and crash and send everything and everyone spiralling down and down and down.)

* * *

The world is blurry but I am aware enough to _think_.

"Where…" I say with a groggy haze looming over my brain. "What's…"

I cannot move. My limbs are lead and fused together and something that sounds like a scream comes from my lips and I do not feel like myself.

"Ah, Victoria," comes a voice. Soft. Familiar. Comforting. I cough and choke and wheeze. Bile is on my lips and I don't know where I am or why I can't move. "You're up."

The lights are too harsh, too painful, to let me see. Someone else groans somewhere. Pain. Something else. "I don't…" My tongue feels heavy and there are tears. Something in my chest starts to tear and threatens to pull me under the surface and let madness take over.

A head shakes. "Not now. Not yet. We've only just started."

I try to scream but I cannot. The tape that covers my mouth is too thick, too oppressive. Something muffled and distorted hums against the material.

Another sting from somewhere and everything collides into itself. I don't know if my eyes are open or closed when Rachel Amber's face, beautiful and tragic, presents itself.

 _Click._

"That despair blooming on your face, Victoria, the way your innocent expression is corrupted by the dawning realisation of the truth… For once, you look beautiful."

I can't taste them, but I know the tears on my cheeks are salty and filled with grief. I think of a beach and Nathan and something else beautiful struggling and hurting and dying.

I do not hear the next click of the shutter.

* * *

Mark Jefferson shows up when pretty much all of the class is standing in the hallway, eager and anxious and starstruck with their best cameras. Victoria stands with Nathan and tries to tell herself she's above it, that she is not like them.

She sees Taylor standing with another girl, shorter and with choppy dark hair but bitchy enough that it doesn't matter. Taylor gives Victoria a look that she half-returns. In this moment it is hard to care when her entire future is five minutes away from beginning.

The first thing Jefferson says to them is, "I suppose this destroys whatever first impressions you were all imagining," as he unlocks the classroom door. "Come in."

Taylor waves again and sits with this other girl by the window in the light of a September morning. Victoria looks at them and feels a lurch in her stomach, then takes a seat at a table near the back of the classroom where Nathan slouches in his chair like he's already done this a hundred times before.

She neatly sets her camera and notebook on the table. Nathan has a small jotter and a worn-down pencil in front of him. His camera remains in his bag. Victoria wonders why she decided to sit here, why she has chosen a distance from the social tumult. She cannot come up with a sufficient answer so she tells herself it's to keep focused in the one class that matters.

"Not to play the narcissist, but I'm fairly certain you know who I am," Mark Jefferson says with an easy smile as he meets the gaze of every student in the room. Victoria's face flushes when he looks at her, _her_ , for the first time. Suddenly she's fourteen again, unsure and nervous and starstruck.

Nathan starts to scribble in his pad and it brings her back to Earth. She looks over and he shields the paper with one arm before facing her. He rolls his eyes and attempts a shallow smile, a cheap projection of boredom.

Victoria thinks about those countless nights she dreamed about coming face-to-face with Mark Jefferson, as his student, his fellow artist, something else, and realises this is not a projection she can comfortably mimic. She bites her lip and looks away.

"Now, we're going to start the semester off with something fun and easy," Mark Jefferson says, and in Victoria's mind he is still _Mark_ Jefferson and not _Mister_ Jefferson yet. "Landscape photography. I'd like to hope you've all read the first chapter in your textbooks, but if not, could someone do me a favour and fill the rest of the class in on one of the great landscape photographers of the Twentieth Century?"

A chance. Victoria breathes in, breathes out, raises her hand.

Mark Jefferson points at her. "Yes, uh…"

"Victoria," she says, feeling like she can float.

"Yes. Victoria." Mark Jefferson says the name slowly, savouring it, remembering it. It is a fantasy, acted out before her very eyes. "Go on."

"Call it a tired area of discussion, but I still think there are things to learn from the unique way in which Ansel Adams framed the American landscape during—"

The classroom door opens. A figure steps in. "I cannot apologise enough for being late." Victoria's words die on her tongue.

"Oh," says Mark Jefferson, a single apt sound that echoes on and on and on.

 _Oh_. She's five foot nothing with golden hair and a smile straight from a Hollywood art film.

 _Oh._ Her body's not perfect, curvy in some places, thinner in others, but she carries herself like a model.

 _Oh._ She wears a tattered flannel shirt with frayed denim shorts and beaten-up Converse and looks like she's just stepped out of a Californian fever dream.

 _Oh._ The look on Mark Jefferson's face is _rapturous_.

"You must be…" Jefferson says, reaching for a sheet of paper on his desk. "Rachel Amber, right?"

The girl, Rachel, nods. "Yeah, and I'm _so sorry_ about—"

Jefferson laughs. "Don't worry, just take a seat, Rachel," he says. Her name is something precious and coveted on his lips. "We've only just started."

Rachel nods furiously and sits at the back of the classroom, a whole desk to herself. She opens her bag and out spills a blue binder, a sketchbook, fashion magazine clippings, Polaroids, and a six-year-old DSLR that is still brilliant and white.

And Victoria can't stop _staring._

Rachel looks up from her desk and gives a warm smile, tossing her hair back and exposing a feather earring that perfectly hangs in the sunlight. Victoria feels something foreign and ugly grip her insides and she has to force herself to look away before she does more than scowl.

"Victoria, you do have a point about Adams' work," Jefferson says, stepping into the middle of the room, looking at Rachel more than once. "But we should also consider the impact of colour on landscape photography. Any suggestions?"

When he says her name again, it somehow feels different. Less special. Like it's been dragged through the mud and left somewhere to rot.

"Yes, Rachel?"

When he says Rachel's name it's with reverence and adoration, almost a prayer. Like she's something more than human, dreams and mysticism made flesh. She speaks clearly and with knowledge, but her posture betrays that her heart is somewhere else.

Jefferson says, "Very good, Rachel," and Victoria names the snake in her stomach _jealousy_.

(It's not until much later that she realises that Nathan, too, was captivated by Rachel and her ethereal qualities, and later still that she voices the second feeling towards Jefferson that dances like an undercurrent, a warning.)

* * *

"I'm getting some spectacular images here, Max."

The room is splayed in reds and purples, like tender skin ravaged by bruising. There are lights both dim and bright, predatory eyes watching over the gates of hell. I force my eyes open a little further. Spots dance in my vision and nausea threatens to send me reeling.

Max Caulfield is in front of me. In a chair. Max.

 _Click_. My body flinches and my eyes shut and tears stain my cheeks. My neck is limp and my body hurts.

Mark Jefferson is looming over a camera, hungry and powerful. I cannot see his head, his face, but instinct alone paints a frighteningly compelling picture in my mind's eye.

"Yes, Victoria would kill to be in your place, but… she doesn't understand our…" Jefferson motions towards me and for one moment I see Max's face with absolute clarity, a mask of horror splayed on a delicate canvas. Something aches.

"Connection."

 _Click._

The scene is a photograph with torn edges and broken framing, something horrible that no longer wants to exist.

" _You're_ the winner, Max. I choose you… your portrait."

I, too, no longer want to exist.

* * *

Rachel is at the Vortex Club meeting. Rachel is in the halls. Rachel is, seemingly, everywhere.

Victoria arms herself with Taylor as she steps through the door to room 209. They are greeted by critical gazes from half a dozen people sitting around a large circular table. She can feel the way that they evaluate her worth, the way elitism rolls off them with every breath.

"Hi Courtney," Taylor says to the plum-haired girl from earlier, a rookie misstep that cements her position on the social hierarchy. Courtney raises one eyebrow and says nothing.

"You girls here to apply for Vortex membership?" says a boy with dark skin, short hair, and an easy voice rolled up into a proto-fratboy fashion sense.

Victoria folds her arms, shows off her jewellery. "Yes, and I—"

Nathan is sitting at the far end. Rachel sits next to him. They share a look and Victoria's breath catches in her mouth.

"I mean, why else would we be here?" Taylor fills in with a sheepish smile, dragging Victoria across the chasm caused by her misstep. Victoria lets the breath out through clenched teeth. "I mean, we're pretty and rich enough, right?"

That gets a laugh from the boy. "Yup," he says. Then he looks to the far side of the table. "This the chick you were on about earlier, Nate?"

Nathan's expression changes to something Victoria can't describe. He nods. "Victoria's cool," he says.

"I mean, if Nathan Prescott approves, I'm down." The boy smiles. "Hayden."

"Taylor," Taylor says.

All eyes on Victoria. "Victoria," she says. "Pleasure to meet you all."

Rachel Amber laughs from the back of the classroom. "So we're really just gonna let people in based on the judgement of two _boys?_ " She looks over at Courtney. "R-I-P to the feminist agenda; the Vortex Club was too much for it."

Taylor laughs weakly. Victoria remains still.

Rachel changes expression. "Chill, chill," she says. "You girls seem cool. Definitely have that you-can't-sit-with-us vibe that the club is known for." She laughs again, an airy warm sound that brings to mind a golden sunlit coast somewhere warm. Victoria can't get a read on her and the way she skirts the line between a deprecatory joke and an outright insult.

Rachel is an enigma. Rachel is powerful.

"So, like, no crazy initiation stunts or anything?" Taylor asks.

"Just sign your names on this VIP list and you're in," Hayden says, sliding a sheet of paper towards them with a pen. Victoria grabs it, taking in the list of names. There are only twelve names written down, each one with a distinct flavour of handwriting but otherwise uninteresting.

Two things catch her interest, however. The first is that one name in the middle of the list, _Tara Garcia_ , has been crossed out with a violent scribble, black ink over blue. The second is on the header at the top of the page. _Faculty Supervisor: Mark Jefferson._

"Oh," Rachel says, seeming to sense her curiosity. "Mr Jefferson took over when he accepted Blackwell's invitation at the start of summer. Apparently he was big on supervising college societies or whatever back in the day; he said something about student initiative, which for us means license to go wild all day every day."

Victoria feels something, refuses to feel it any more. "And this other name…?" she asks, reaching for the pen.

Rachel lets out a sigh. "Tara," she says simply. "Real shame. She had to drop out of Blackwell over the summer due to some kinda personal problem. Sucks she never got to meet Mr Jefferson, though." Nathan lets out a breath.

"Small crowd," Victoria says, testing the waters, instigating a challenge. "Must be picky if you've only let eleven people through."

Rachel evades the bait with another laugh. Victoria can't tell if it's a nervous reflex or a personality quirk. "Mostly because the rest of Blackwell thinks we're all rich dicks," she says. "And hey, not eleven now. With you two that makes an unlucky thirteen." It is a reflex when she holds her feather earring between two fingers, though.

"Believe in superstition?" Victoria asks.

Rachel nods emphatically. "Not all the way, though," she says. "But omens and luck and junk? Definitely. This earring's a good-luck charm, so hopefully that counters the unfortunate number of VIPs." Her expression is completely serious to the point where Victoria begins to feel uncomfortable, like she's made an irredeemably offensive comment.

She shrugs it off. "Whatever," she says. "We'll just make our own luck." She writes her name down, a light stroke of the pen giving form to elegant letters. Taylor takes the pen and writes her name in, all curved writing and "i"s dotted with hearts.

Nathan stares at them, untold words behind an aloof mask. Victoria ignores the chills and slides the list back across the table.

Hayden picks it up and says, "Welcome to the Vortex." It feels like a threat.

(She stares at the abyss with warning sirens blaring, takes Taylor's hand and sends them both plunging into its depths.)

* * *

"Ah, hello again, Victoria."

 _Clickclickclickclick._

My body aches and my head droops. In the sea of colour and light I cannot orient myself.

The only constant between these flashes of clarity is the realisation, rattling around and tearing my world to pieces.

 _Jefferson, Jefferson. It's Jefferson._

I try to lift my head. There is pain and I cry, lips and teeth and tongue pushing against constricting tape. Suddenly there is the image of Kate's dorm room, bound and taped as she lies in a hospital with a shattered mind and soul, but still so pure, so strong.

Tears fall to the floor and I am aware of music, soft and brassy.

I shudder and open my eyes as Jefferson takes a step, snaps the camera, smiles. The brightness hurts. Everything hurts. Max Caulfield sits in a chair on the other side of the room, head back and still.

Another flash of pain and the realisation comes that I am upright. It takes too much effort and too much time to move my head. Jefferson clicks away in the background. My arms are splayed out, bound to the wall behind me. Legs taped together.

Crucified.

The tape on my mouth hums with the effort of killing my screams. My eyes throb with pain and I am unable to think beyond Kate on the Blackwell roof, a breath away from leaping, flying, falling.

Jefferson cups my face in his hand, forcing our eyes to meet. "Just remember, you did this to yourself, Victoria," he says in that warm-yet-assertive voice he uses when giving lectures on photography's greats. "This is what happens when you treat innocence like a plaything."

He presents his other hand to me. There is a packet of cigarettes, familiar in a way that makes me start gagging. "Dirty habits, dirty attitude, dirty reputation. You are nothing, Victoria Chase. _You repel me._ "

My expression shifts in a way that lights his face up. He throws the cigarettes at me and retrieves his camera as they fall to the floor.

The shutter flashes. Something inside wobbles, falls, and shatters.

* * *

Blackwell's first Vortex Club party of the school year – and Victoria's first in her life – takes place on September 21st, a Friday halfway through the month. Enough time for connections to be made, lesser members to be recruited, and for the hierarchy to be established.

It takes place in the gymnasium, a place that couldn't be more obviously clichéd if it tried, both because the first party of the year always is somewhat low-budget even with Prescott cash, and because more freshmen are likely to attend an on-campus party than somewhere else in the still alien Arcadia Bay.

She is in the VIP lounge – a crude construction formed from a few portable room dividers and red curtains. But luxury or no, the distinction is clear, the line is drawn, _us_ and _them_ sparking like a palpable thing in the air that's already smelling of booze after only an hour.

"And this is, like, okay?" Taylor asks as Rachel glides over to them with an ethereal elegance and bottle of wine in her hand. Something vintage, Victoria notes, something above her station. Nobody questions how and why. Nobody really wants to; there is the hierarchy to consider, that Rachel is a Vortex veteran and they are only freshmen.

"Totally," Rachel chirps, free hand brushing her perfect golden hair behind her ear, showing off that irreverent feather as some kind of statement Victoria cannot truly place. "Faculty really doesn't care, like at all. This is actually us playing it safe for the start of the year." A mischievous smile grows on her face that seems to draw the light itself. "You should see how things go later in the semester; spoilers, shit gets pretty crazy when more of us are acquainted with Frank."

Rachel feels so genuine, so kind, so _open_ that it takes all of Victoria's strength not to reel in distrust. Nobody is this caring without something to hide, especially not a second-year art student at a prestigious private academy.

She looks into Rachel's dreaming hazel eyes and tries to fathom what dirt-stained secrets are contained within their depths. But there is a wall of mist – like the light summer spray of the warm southern Californian ocean – surrounding Rachel, something powerful and protective disguised as something beautiful. There are masks and layers that are impossible to see unless you truly know what you're looking for.

Victoria knows. She looks for what elements of herself she can see mirrored in the way Rachel breathes easiness like it's natural. Rachel seems to instantly sense the scrutiny and faces Victoria with a smile brighter than the midday sun.

"Everything all right, Vicky?" she asks. 'Vicky'. Victoria keeps her face perfectly smooth, tries to bury the grimace under layers of professionalism.

"Why wouldn't it be?" Victoria snaps back, folding her arms. Her hands rest against the armour of her sweater; fingers against cashmere, she feels a little less insecure. "If there was something wrong, I'd let you know."

Rachel lets the words slide off her like it's nothing, crushing the challenge before it even manifests. "Glad to see you're open and honest," she says with a sweet smile and something a little more wistful in her eyes. "Too many people in the Vortex are fake as they come."

Rachel wields frighteningly candid and beautiful masks in a way that unsettles something deep in Victoria's core. Her eyes flit around, looking for a way out, an escape from this encounter.

"Want some?" Rachel asks, gesturing to the wine.

"Sure," Taylor replies and Victoria can't help the crushing weight of betrayal on her chest. The shame rolls in quickly after. _It's a fucking drink of wine, stop being so paranoid._

Still, there is something about Rachel's gravitational force that makes Victoria want to wither.

She finds her exit two minutes later when a sudden shout tears through the pounding music and a figure in red careens straight into Rachel. She lets out a sharp shriek as she falls back and loses grip on the wine.

In slow motion, Victoria watches the bottle fly up into the air and crash back down, exploding in a shower of glass and crimson all over Rachel's fallen form. She wants to laugh at the misfortune, to distract from her insecurities, but even now, she can't help but realise how damn _photogenic_ the whole thing looks.

Belatedly, she realises the figure is Nathan Prescott when she reaches a hand out to grab him and stop him from falling onto her and maybe doing some real damage. She doesn't know why she does it, but Rachel's bewildered eyes meet hers and she knows she cannot let anything worse happen.

"Whoa, Nathan," Victoria says in clipped tones. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Nathan spins around to look at her. His eyes are red and puffed up and there is a frighteningly goofy grin on his face, and Victoria's immediate thought is, _this is more than weed_. "Victoria," he says, starts laughing, zones out, and comes back in. "Oh man, everyone's fucking here tonight."

Taylor stands at the sidelines, looking horribly displaced. An orbiter stuck in a gathering of gravitational bodies. She takes a tentative sip from her drink and Victoria can see her calculating the easiest way to remove herself from the situation.

"Nathan, dude, what are you on?" Victoria asks. Rachel is still on the ground. She ignores her.

When Nathan doesn't meet her eyes she remembers Rachel's words from earlier. _Spoilers, shit gets pretty crazy when more of us are acquainted with Frank._ It's only been a month. A deep-set weariness settles over Victoria and she has to breathe until it fades.

"Just some weed," Nathan lies and Victoria is back in her junior high health class, reading over a list of substances coded red for **illegal and dangerous**. Part of her knows it's just scaremongering, that it's fine if done in moderation and around enough people that you'll be safe if something does go wrong, but part of her sees a seventeen-year-old in too deep and her stomach rises with unease. "Frank's rates are pretty cool."

The confirmation seems to punctuate Victoria's dread. "I've heard," she says, her head swimming with an undefinable _something_.

Beside them, Rachel stands to her feet, her hair wet and her expression frozen between bewilderment and beauty. Her eyes flit to Nathan, then Taylor, then Victoria, then Nathan again. Victoria braces herself, anticipates the mask cracking and the true Rachel, the ugly Rachel, to spill through.

Instead, Rachel Amber starts to laugh, her voice high and clear.

Victoria senses the instant that all her perceptions and expectations skew and shatter.

"Oh _man_ ," Rachel says, her body shaking and tears rolling from her eyes. "That was fucking _wild_ , Nathan."

Nathan lets out one short laugh in response, but Victoria sees her own unease mirrored in his eyes, doped up to the point where they're almost but not quite unseeing. He stares at Rachel for a while as she stands in the puddle of wine and glass and keeps howling like she's discovered humour for the first time, and his expression grows more and more uncomfortable.

Victoria's impression of Nathan as an asset, an _ally_ , solidifies somewhere between the upbeat rhythms of Ke$ha and Rachel's lilting laughter. She takes his hand, her grip firm, and meets his eyes.

"You look fucking trashed," she says, taking a step towards the exit. "Let's get you out of here before you crash and burn."

Nathan doesn't say anything but complies as Victoria leads him out of the rising chaos of the Vortex Club and into the warm night air that doesn't seem to want to let summer go.

She pretends she doesn't feel Rachel's eyes on her all the while.

(At some point as they walk through the dark, Victoria cannot tell who is leading who into uncertainty.)

* * *

"Victoria? Hey, Victoria… it's Max. Can you hear me?"

Everything hurts. My head is a muddled mess of memories both recent and distant, flushed with an undercurrent of terror. The floor is warm, inviting almost, but I force myself to focus on the voice, strong and familiar and not _his_.

My eyes sting under the harsh lighting as I battle against blurred vision. Slowly, like a picture, Max's determined face comes into focus. I take a breath and—oh God. _She's still in that chair_.

An image that may or may not be real floats by that I pray is not so.

I swallow my panic and pretend my throat isn't burning. "Max… Oh God, where… where are we?" I try to lift my head but the weakness and pain are too much. My limbs are stiff and heavy and when I see the tape binding them together there is nothing I can do to stop the panic bubbling out of me. "What's happening?"

Max looks at me like her heart is about to break, and—and her wrists are strapped down, _bound_ to the chair. Clicks of a camera echo in my head and I refuse to follow them to the source. "You've been drugged like Kate… and me." _Saint Slut. Churchwhore_. Horrible, vile words spewed a lifetime ago slap me in the face, punch me in the gut, and for a moment all I can see is Kate stumbling through the Vortex with dazed eyes and a hollow expression as she presses her lips to some anonymous Bigfoots jock and then Kate in the rain, on the rooftop, making minute steps as she gets closer and closer to the edge—

The tears are painful and sting against oddly tender skin but I am powerless against them. Then I clue in on the _and me_ and feel the air get ripped out of my lungs. _Max was…?_

I don't want to think about this. I don't want to think at all.

Then, finally I remember the tape against my wrists and ankles and feel my mind hit a brick wall. It's only through survival instincts that I don't shut down then and there.

"Do you remember how you got here?"

"No… I don't know… Wait…"

The floodgates rip open, violently and without any hesitation.

I can feel the cold air outside the Vortex party, hear the faint pulsing of music and whispers of two moons and see the _amber_ glow of a cigarette in the shadows. I'm back on the hood of a sedan, my phone vibrating with Nathan's voice and _then—_

I remember it all with acute clarity. It's only by some miracle that I don't throw up.

"You warned me. You warned me about Nathan." The sob finally rips itself out when I see the sheer horror and despair blossoming on Max's face. _Not your fault_ , I want to say but I am not in control of the words that bleed out of my mouth, not truly. "Then I went to Jefferson for help and he was acting _so_ weird…" I force my eyes shut, _will_ the memories not to manifest beyond a grim suggestion. "That's the last thing I remember." It sticks in my throat, but at this point, what's another lie?

I go to wipe the tears from my face and I come crashing back down to reality. "And I can't move my hands! Help me, Max!" I attempt a feeble struggle but I can't stop feeling so _weak_. I'm desperate and begging and every part of me is hurting. "Please, I'm sorry for everything!"

A distant part of me acknowledges that I am not being rational, that Max is in the exact same position as me, but rationality left me hours ago.

But she is stronger. Even strapped down to the chair, Max looks down on me with a strength I wouldn't be able to muster even if I wasn't here and my body didn't feel so ruined. "Listen carefully. Mark Jefferson kidnapped us. He's using Nathan as well."

Max's voice, so soft but so powerful, is an anchoring point that allows me to surface from the hysterics. "Jefferson is very dangerous," Max continues, "so we have to get out of here before he comes back."

Her words sink in. _Jefferson. Nathan._ I feel the cracks in my world grow larger, counting down the seconds until it all breaks for good.

Then I recall something else. _Rachel in the Dark Room._

 _Kate in the Dark Room_

 _Max in the Dark Room_

 _Victoria in the Dark Room._

I very nearly lose control of my breathing. "Max… I just can't believe this is real." _Look what happened to Kate. To Rachel._ "I don't want to die like this! I'm only eighteen!"

My head drops to the ground and I weep silently, feeling powerless and pathetic and utterly _broken_.

But again, Max is there, pulling me through, bearing the strength for both of us. "Just hold on, Victoria," she says. "Nobody is going to die… any more."

There is something unsaid, visible in the pain on her face. Even if I had the strength to pursue, I wouldn't.

Then I remember Nathan's message and I am swallowed by the vortex of my own suffering. _I fucked up and now he's coming to get me…_

 _But Nathan was supposed to be… Max told me,_ he _told me…_

I'm back in the parking lot as he whispers "Rachel in the Dark Room" to me, and I can't stop thinking how it would have made _so much sense_ for Nathan to be the one behind the camera, the one _crucifying_ me, not—

"Max, what's going on? I thought you said Nathan was dangerous, but it was actually Mark? Mr Jefferson?" The words hurt. The realisation hurts even more.

"I was wrong," Max says in a broken voice, her strength ebbing and flowing like a tide. I think of whales on a beach, stranded and at the mercy of the flashing cameras. I don't like the comparisons I begin to make. "I should have known that Nathan couldn't do this all on his own."

When Max says 'this', giving it depth and significance that frightens me, I realise I don't know anything beyond the words Dark Room and the nebulous remnants of terrible, terrible memories. Terror rises, sharp and keen. "Do what? What's going to happen to us? Oh, please get us out of here!"

 _Max. Focus on Max._ I so desperately want to lose myself to the madness and hysteria clawing at the edges of my mind, but the part of me that will always choose life over death doesn't allow me to.

"I'm not going to let that _asshole_ get away with this," Max says, raw with emotion. "I just… I just need you to be strong. I can't do this alone."

It's the tipping point. The moment where I feel the terror and raw grief solidify into a palpable despair that chokes me inside and out.

"We need to act while we're clear-headed," Max is saying, and I keep listening even though I want to give myself to my tears instead. "If he doses us again, we'll forget everything."

Even in the face of _this_ , the Dark Room, every single horror crystallised into one location, Max keeps going, keeps fighting, doesn't let it get to her. And on the floor, wallowing in my own suffering, I know there is no way I can compare with that.

I name the emotion clamping down on my head _guilt_. "I'm not strong, Max. Look at me… Look what I did to Kate Marsh." _Look what happened to Kate._ "Now she's in the hospital and I'm _here_."

"Kate wants us to get the hell out of here…" Max says, her words a soothing rhythm against the agony of my guilt. I remember thinking that being in the bathroom as Kate was carted off to the hospital with the knowledge that it was _my fault_ was my low point. I want to go back in time and shake myself for being so naive. "And then we can both go see her again, okay?"

I see Kate standing on the roof, see it behind the lens of my camera, hating myself. I force myself to think of my letter to her, and her unfailingly positive texts promising forgiveness and redemption. "I'd do anything to see Kate once more… just to tell her I'm sorry." To see her in person, see her _alive_.

"Victoria, we will find a way to escape, I promise." Max speaks with utmost conviction, like there is no other possibility, that for once, things _will_ be okay.

"Max… I believe you."

My head hits the floor again, and this time, I allow myself to drown in grief for too many people.

The world shifts and warps, but I'm beyond the ability to really tell what's truly real any more.

* * *

October brings the seasonal tipping point to Arcadia Bay, where the mornings are crisp and wrapped in a light mist and the afternoons burning it all away in a balmy glow, where the town is green and full of life but the vast woodland beyond twitches with early hints of gold and stillness.

It's a little bit before six in the morning as Victoria stands in the middle of the woodland hikers' trail overlooking the town. By the safety fence is a parked red pick-up truck; Nathan lies back on the hood, cigarette in one hand and camera in the other. His eyes are half-closed as he breathes out, the smoke entwining with the slowly thinning morning mist. Towards the horizon, the sun begins to rise, casting the Bay in a golden shine that makes Victoria think too much of a certain _someone_ who sits at the back of Mr Jefferson's class.

She raises her own camera, brand new and worth more than six thousand dollars, and snaps the ethereal landscape below.

"It's pretty out," says Nathan. He's sitting upright, taking more shots with a camera worth twice as much as Victoria's. The black-and-white lens is fixed onto the shutter and the flash above it goes wild. Nathan's photography style is sporadic and unpredictable in a way that seizes upon anything that catches his eye. Victoria wants to think the word _predatory_ but can't bring herself to.

"Pretty enough to win the New Beginnings contest?" Victoria asks. She is here, physically, in this woodland that hums with the salt of the sea breeze, but her mind keeps going back to Mr Jefferson's lecture two weeks ago, the way he announced the first photography competition of the year with a smooth smile that both captivated and inspired. It's nothing big, just a two grand cash prize and a week's feature in some small Portland gallery, but it's what it represents on a deeper level that interests Victoria. Her first impression in the art world, independent of the Chase Space and its stale, rigid guidelines. It's a taste of freedom and things to come.

The conditions for the contest state that the entries must be a collaborative effort between two photographers. Taylor sidled up to Courtney in a heartbeat – the two have become surprisingly close during their first month at Blackwell – and Victoria called out Nathan's name before Rachel Amber could even so much as look in her direction. If there's ever a spotlight she doesn't want _Rachel fucking Amber_ to grab, it's this one. Who gives a fuck about Rachel? The faster she fades into obscurity, and from Victoria's mind, the better.

Victoria thinks about how Rachel teamed up with eccentric, pretentious Evan like she didn't even see Victoria's threat. Just a quick walk across the classroom and a, "Hey, Evan. Mind working with me on this?"

Whatever. It doesn't matter.

She knows that Rachel's out there in the countryside, posing under Evan's expertly-trained eye, compares her own shots to this theoretical, and feels her face burn red with inadequacy.

"How are your shots?" she asks Nathan, burying Rachel's serene face somewhere out of mind. It doesn't work well.

Nathan motions to her. "Come look," he says absently, pulling up the shots on the small screen. Victoria cautiously steps over to the truck and moves herself onto the hood. She sits next to Nathan, close enough that she can smell the tobacco-weed hybrid and feel his warmth.

"This one's all right, I think," Nathan says. He moves the camera over so Victoria can get a better look, his arm brushing against hers. She leans in, her mind's gears switching to photography critic mode, then stifles a gasp.

It's of her, camera poised and body leaning slightly forward, absorbed in trying to capture the perfect shot. And beyond that, a view of Arcadia Bay so intricately and beautifully framed in monochrome that Victoria's brain pauses on the word _sublime_ and can't get past it, can't stop _staring_ at the effortless beauty of Nathan's lens.

"This is…" she says, then stops, realising any and every sophisticated term would be inadequate. "This is really beautiful, Nathan."

"Huh. Yeah, probably," Nathan says. He shrugs, but he is still close enough to her that he almost ends up leaning on her. Victoria stiffens but doesn't make any attempt to move away. "You think we should submit this one? Like, after we clean it up and fix it a little, but after that, yeah?"

Victoria nods and doesn't say anything. Her gaze goes from the camera screen to the real thing, a landscape of artistic mastery that invokes emotions she doesn't have the words for.

And then, she realises, with a dawning blossom of hope, that this is a winner.

(She breathes in the morning air and tastes success.)

* * *

Jefferson's class passes by with the weirdest sense of déjà vu.

It starts when my phone buzzes and Max Caulfield suddenly has some kind of spasm from the back of the class. My eyes shift away from her bewildered face and instead drift to the phone.

It's Zachary. Ugh. The oaf probably thinks there's something serious going on. Whatever. Dana and Juliet can solve that clusterfuck themselves. I'm done.

Then Taylor throws a note across the class – _Dear Kate, we love your porn video! - XOXO Blackwell Academy_ – which lands on Kate's head. Taylor smirks beside me, but I'm struck by a weird sensation of familiarity, then the fringes of an overwhelming sense of dread for no reason I can explain. _Just the stress getting to you, Victoria. What you need is some serious blaze and chill time._

I need to look to Kate's desk again. For some reason the fact that she's _there_ and _okay_ brings a flood of relief.

"Now, can anybody give me an example of a photographer who perfectly captured the human condition in black and white?" Mark Jefferson is asking to the class.

Even though I kinda zoned out for a moment, the answer still presents itself immediately. I raise my hand as my phone stops vibrating. "Diane Arbus."

This is all new stuff, but why does it feel like we've gone through it before?

"There you go, Victoria," Mark says with that haughty smile that does things to me. When I first heard that the photography teacher was a renowned photographer, I saw it as another advantage. Only when I found it it was Mark fucking Jefferson of all people, well…

I think about how hot he is, but the thought feels wrong on a level beyond it simply being a basic teenage fantasy. I can't pin why, so I choose to ignore it.

"Why Arbus?"

And once again, the answer comes to me naturally. "Because of her images of hopeless faces. You feel, like, totally haunted by the sad eyes of those mothers and children."

Then Mr Jefferson launches into a lecture about capturing people at the height of their innocence. It's all totally new, but not at the same time. Something feels weird.

Jefferson does have a tendency to go off on tangents. Maybe he's said similar things before.

I turn my head to look at Max Caulfield a couple of seconds before she actually takes the selfie, almost like I'm compelled to look over there.

Maybe I'm just thinking too much into this.

Jefferson quickly hushes the class and makes the shittiest pun on the planet. "Selfie-expression"? Really?

I take a second to remind myself what he stands for. This man could be the difference between my success and failure. In the long run, attending a prestigious school means very little. The art world is a relentless, unforgiving environment. I can't afford to lose sight of the prize.

"Could you please tell us the name of the process that gave birth to the first self portrait?"

I hide my amusement behind a blank face. We won't be studying the Daguerrian Process until a few months from now; that chapter is much further ahead than where we are now. _Maxine Caulfield, prepare to fall._

And then, impossibly, Max says, "The Daguerrian Process," her tone flat and her body language infused with a kind of weary hostility.

It's almost as if my entire reality is displaced for a moment. That's… That's not right. That's not something she should know, but more importantly that is not how _Max Caulfield_ speaks. That is not the shrinking wallflower who bursts with so much raw _talent_ but chooses to hide from the spotlight. This is… something else.

Max keeps staring at Jefferson. The only way I can think to describe her expression is _haunted_.

"Oh," Jefferson says, stumbling over his words. "Well… that was easy, Max."

I feel uncomfortable. I do not know why.

"Was it?" Max replies, seething with the closest to hate she can muster. She scoffs. Like, actually scoffs. "Okay."

I look over to her, and can't stop looking at her.

"Well… uh… Okay then."

Jefferson starts talking again but I can't bring myself to look at him again.

"So, uh, the Daguerrian Process made portraiture hugely popular, mainly because it gave the subjects clear, defined features."

Max keeps staring.

"You can learn more when you actually finish reading the assigned chapters. Obviously… Max has read them."

Jefferson looks at Max. She meets his gaze and doesn't look away. He breaks eye contact first.

The bell rings and Jefferson manages to regain his composure. "And guys, don't forget the deadline to submit a photo in the Everyday Heroes contest."

Huh. The Everyday Heroes contest suddenly feels like something from another world, another lifetime. But then I remember my unfinished photograph and the threat that someone like Max could pose and I suddenly know with clarity that I have to speak with Mr Jefferson.

The thought fills me with a deep-set anxiety beyond the contest. I ignore it.

Once nearly everyone's filed out (Kate is at the back of the room organising today's essay assignments for Mr Jefferson to grade and Max is still in her seat, still looking forward listlessly) I move over to Jefferson's desk and initiate the conversation.

We exchange hollow words, _yes_ I still need to do that assignment for next Monday, _no_ I don't get a deadline extension, _of course_ I'm as dedicated and focused on my craft as humanly possible.

Mr Jefferson smiles and leans against the desk. Ice shoots down my spine.

Then Max is there, walking up to us with a look in her face that says she's weathered something beyond our understanding. It's… familiar, in a way I do not want to think about.

"Mr Jefferson," she says, voice hardened beyond the demure shrinking violet doe image. "We need to talk."

I feel afraid and I still don't know _why_.

"Uh…" Mr Jefferson says, an added layer of _something_ going unsaid. It sets something off inside me. A defence mechanism, maybe.

"Can't you see I'm talking to Mr Jefferson right now?" I shoot back, but it's weak, lacks the conviction it should have. _Wrong wrong wrong._

"Yes I see," Max says, turning on me with arms folded. Then, something crosses her face and her expression softens, almost as if in grief. "But maybe you shouldn't…"

My first instinct is to agree, to take Max by the hand and get out of this classroom. Then I remember who I am. "Uh, and why not?" _God, if Nathan could read my thoughts right now._

Nathan. A well of emotion clogs my throat, and I have to swallow it away.

Jefferson looks at Max (when did he go from _Mr Jefferson_ to just Jefferson?) and I take a step back, letting a ragged breath loose. _What the fuck is wrong with me?_

"Hold on, Victoria." He leans towards me, an open gesture that I would have loved to see less than ten minutes ago. But now I simply stiffen and will him away from me. "Are you _okay_ , Max?"

There's something else in his tone. A challenge. A threat, maybe.

I feel deeply uncomfortable.

Max rounds on me, but keeps glancing back at Jefferson and I _don't understand_. "I will be when Victoria understands that hiding behind a screen, posting videos of people is… incredibly cruel and unfair."

I'm suddenly struck by the feeling that I'm in a dream, that the world around me is only barely tangible, ready to fade away at a moment's notice. Nothing feels quite right.

"You're smart enough to know how easy it is to hurt somebody, to destroy their life," Max continues, and it's Rachel Amber I'm seeing standing in front of me, effortlessly cutting through layers upon layers of masks to get at the ugly truth. It makes me feel sick. "I just want you to think about how much it would hurt if somebody did that to you."

She looks to Jefferson again, this time with so much _meaning_ that some base instinct screams at me to flee.

Max's face softens again. "You can always make the right choice, Victoria. I know you've got a good heart." Now her eyes bore into mine, and a shared look of _something_ passes between us. This close, I can see the tears springing up from the corners of Max's eyes. "I've seen it."

"Listen… I… I didn't…" I try to say, but words fail me and all I can do is try to ignore the intense rush of feelings dancing just beneath the surface.

"You don't have to explain," Max replies, earnest and understanding in a way that completely throws me off. "There's no reason for you to be so insecure that you can't be happy with your own talent."

Suddenly I'm sitting alone with Nathan on a night where we're just a little too wasted and a little too vulnerable. I'm standing outside campus on an early summer evening, with Rachel baring all the truths of the Earth with her effortlessly mysterious aura.

"Wouldn't it be better to lift people up than to drag them down?"

 _Kate's vid. She's talking about Kate's vid._

It helps to rationalise, a little, but no matter what I do I can't shake the feeling that there is another layer to this conversation.

"You could inspire people."

Now, now I feel tears of my own threatening to rise. Somewhere in my mind, I see the roof of the dorms in the pouring rain, with a figure standing up there, creeping ever closer to the edge.

I blink it away. It doesn't really help.

So instead, I go on the defensive, the denial. _Always been good at that, Vic_ , Rachel whispers to me from the past. "Okay, I don't know what you're talking about…" I force myself to look at Jefferson, bury everything I've felt since Max opened her mouth. "Do I, Mr Jefferson?"

"I think I should stay out of this one, Victoria," Jefferson says, his voice thick with disinterest that stings to hear.

I don't let it affect me. "Then I guess I'm done talking," I say, folding my arms and pretending it doesn't hurt.

Max smiles with a kind of serenity that I'd only ever seen on the face of a girl who didn't know when to stop living in a dream. "And that's okay too, Victoria."

And—

I can't do this. Not right now.

Almost as if on instinct, I turn away from them and let my feet carry me to the door and do everything in my power _not_ to think.

But for some reason I can't explain, I freeze with my hand gripping the door handle, and turn around to look at the classroom once more.

I catch a glimpse of Max handing a photograph to Mr Jefferson and then the world dissolves into white.

* * *

Rachel wins the contest. She looks half-lost in a dream world as the gallery representative hands her a framed copy of her picture – or more accurately _Evan's_ picture that she is a subject of – and the two grand check. Nathan looks similarly distant, sitting on the table at the front of the class, near a tautly-smiling Mark Jefferson.

And Victoria _boils_. She holds her tongue and plays the part of looking dignified, but beneath is a seething rage-fuelled envy that is barely contained, ready to strike at the slightest moment.

She balls a fist. Taylor touches her shoulder and gives a sympathetic look. It helps, a little.

"Once again, may I congratulate Rachel Amber and Evan Harris on their stunning photography work," Mark Jefferson says, slinking to life, commanding the attention of all in the room, reminding everyone that _he_ is the professional here. "You've done Blackwell Academy – and yourselves – proud."

"Thank you, sir," Evan says modestly, giving a bow that knocks his ridiculously oversized scarf loose, causing it to nearly slip off his skinny neck. He catches it in time.

Rachel keeps smiling with a dazed sense of serenity, barely here. One hand fiddles with that stupid fucking feather earring, and Victoria would kill to be inside Rachel's head right now.

"As previously stated, the winning piece will be on display at the Young Talent exhibit down in Portland for the month of October," Mr Jefferson continues. "The winners – the two of you – will be there to unveil your piece to the keen eyes of the art world, and have your first taste of that photographer's glory." He keeps pacing up and down the length of the classroom, always keeping his gaze fixed on the winning pair.

Later, Victoria will realise that that observation is wrong. It is Rachel Amber he is watching like a hawk, nobody else.

Nathan stirs a little, fidgets with what could almost be called anxiety, then stills again. Victoria wrongly attributes it to a contained surge of envy and disappointment, and leaves the train of thought there.

"Of course, this is not to say I'm immensely proud of all of you for submitting to the contest," Mr Jefferson says. "You've all officially taken your first step into the art world – this is something you should cherish, all of you."

There's something in his gaze, or body language, or _something_ that makes Rachel's head follow him like a fucking sunflower. She doesn't even look like she cares about her victory, about _beating_ Victoria so thoroughly.

She has to take a few shaky breaths before she can focus.

"Now, do our two winners have anything to add?" Mr Jefferson says, passing the spotlight on – not that he had to try very hard, Victoria observes bitterly.

Evan speaks first, says something faux-pretentious and blatantly rehearsed, fidgeting a little under the scrutiny of the entire class. He goes for modest and thanks Mr Jefferson's teaching and Rachel's teamwork and the other students for being _such great competition_.

It takes all Victoria's strength not to gag.

Then Rachel starts talking, and it's like everything else ceases to matter.

"Well, uh," she says, clearing her throat and batting her doe-eyes with a look only for Mr Jefferson, fiddling with the earring _again_. "I don't know what I should say – it's great I'm such a photogenic model?"

Mr Jefferson laughs, and Victoria seethes.

Rachel lets out an airy giggle herself before continuing. "No, seriously," she says, trying and failing to drag herself out of dreamland. "I'm totally overwhelmed, like wow. Never in a million years did I think that I'd win something like this, not when there are about a hundred people better than me."

Victoria tells herself Rachel looks at her, tells herself it long enough that she starts to half-believe it in the end.

"Well, your work clearly shows the beauty that is born from the synergy between photographer and model," Mr Jefferson says, cracking a just-too-wide-smile that sends him verging into the uncanny valley.

"I guess so," Rachel says with a light shrug. "I mean, we could go on forever about whether the artist or the art is more important. It's just one of those debates, you know?"

She thinks she's being slick, but Victoria notices what goes unsaid, what lies between Rachel's innocuous words. _I'm art, I'm better than you_.

Nathan is jiggling his leg, staring at Rachel like she's the centre of the universe. Victoria feels an ache, buries it deep.

"But yeah, I'm super honoured that this is my first ever officially-recognised piece of work," Rachel continues.

"Your first," Jefferson says, "and definitely not your last."

Nathan stiffens, and for the first time since Rachel was declared the winner, looks at Victoria. It's fleeting, a flash of _something_ intermingled with terror, and then Rachel's the only person he has eyes for again.

She could try to interpret it, but Victoria's brain is stuck on the way Rachel so effortlessly won not only the contest, but Mark Jefferson's praise.

It kind of feels like being shoved off a mountain at the last leg of the climb. She is falling, and Rachel is there, reaching for the peak and surpassing her, without Victoria ever knowing she was there, right behind her the entire time.

(She doesn't ever give thought to what truly lies on the other side of the mountaintop. Jealousy burns a steady blaze, and that's all that matters in the moment.)

* * *

The smell of cigarettes is non-existent when I re-enter the school building. That at least, is a thing I can conceal. Only Taylor and Nathan know how much I smoke. For everyone else, it's only when I blaze at Vortex Club parties.

I almost trip on a loose sheet of paper as I walk past David Madsen. I don't even need to look to know it's Rachel's poster.

There's a thought dancing at the forefront of my mind that dies when I stumble into Courtney, inexplicably standing in the middle of the hallway.

"Hey," I say with barely-suppressed irritation. "What the hell's—"

Then my words, too, die on my tongue.

"Shit. _Shit_."

The hallway is crammed with a sea of students, parting to allow two police officers to pass, each one holding Mr Jefferson with an iron grip as they lead him down the hallway.

My brain still hasn't caught up when he walks past me, _looking_ at me in a way that sets off a primal fight-or-flight instinct. I stagger back against a locker just to keep standing.

Kate Marsh stands across from me. I look at her, uncomprehending, for too long. She goes to say something, but then another pair of officers come out of Jefferson's class. My entire body lurches and my throat dries up and I don't know _why—_

Until I do.

He's looking to the floor, kind of shuffling in a way that is thwarted by the way the police officers _drag_ him across the floor, his shoes screeching in a way that I know will leave scuff marks, a mental image that my brain decides to fixate on in a desperate attempt not to look directly at—

He looks at me first, and I just _know_ , can feel the desperate and broken gaze.

I look up and can pinpoint the exact moment I stop breathing.

 _Nathan_. _Oh God, Nathan, no_.

There are a hundred thousand words written across his face, some mixture of rage and terror and despair that is decidedly _broken_ in a way that makes me want to reach out to hold him.

I see the handcuffs around his wrists before the word _why_ can even manifest itself in my mind.

My breathing in shaky and the room is spinning and I want to collapse, here and now, and shut it all out. Something hammers in my chest and it takes me far too long to realise it's my heart.

More people are looking, at Kate, at Nathan, at Jefferson, even at David Madsen awkwardly standing by the vending machines. But not me.

Why would they?

I look around – _not at Nathan, not at Nathan_ – and see the faces of my photography class standing around, all of them deer in the headlights.

Max Caulfield isn't here, the only one who isn't here. I don't know why that registers, why I think of her at all in the wake of… whatever this is.

I hear the front doors open and shut again, and I know they're gone.

We're all left standing there, in a motionless lurch that seems to last an eternity, until someone moves first and breaks the collective paralysis. I don't see who it is.

Then Principal Wells is escorting Kate Marsh somewhere, and I'm still staring, still not processing.

There's just a numbness that I don't want to explore further, a dam perfectly ready to explode at any given moment.

I start trembling and tears cloud my vision, and I don't check back into reality until Taylor is there, holding me like her life depends on it.

"Victoria. Hey, Vic," she's saying and there's just this viscous _grief_ clogging up my throat that makes it impossible to do more than give a broken sob in response. "Shh, shh, it's okay. You're all right. We're gonna be okay."

It's soothing in a way I didn't expect, and didn't know I needed until right now.

"What—" I begin, interrupted by an ugly hiccup, "—the _fuck_ happened?"

When Taylor can't give an answer, my mind drifts to Rachel Amber's ethereal smile immortalised on a million posters and feel as I collapse into myself.

 _Rachel in the Dark Room_ , whispers a voice from another place, another time.

* * *

Victoria decides to cut her hair short for the next Vortex party, and not because Rachel Amber has taken a sudden liking to also wearing her hair up in a ponytail.

Taylor compliments her, of course, but Victoria's not sure Taylor's capable of contradicting her. Taylor is the victim of the shackles that represent high school hierarchy culture, and Victoria knows she is unable to cut her free.

Nathan said, with glassed eyes and a tremble in his hands, "You look good, Vic."

Victoria tells herself that his opinion doesn't matter that much, that it's just another compliment from a friend. But it's also the thing that keeps her steady when the Vortex jock bros decide to announce, "Victoria's gone dyke". It's perhaps the only thing that keeps her from lashing out amidst the migraine-inducing strobe lights and the thrum of shitty second-rate rave tracks that sound like a cross between tone-deaf dubstep and something those home-grown indie punk bands that Rachel Amber likes to see when she's clocked out of being the perfect student would regurgitate.

There is a rage inside Victoria, steadily building and threatening to spill out more and more with each passing day. Objectively, she knows she's letting it consume her, control her life with the twisted knife of self-sabotage, but she equally does nothing about it.

She can't, really. Not when the source is an effortlessly _flawless_ girl with the air of a Hollywood model who dances past her own shortcomings like they're nothing.

Victoria got a B on Mr Jefferson's last practical assignment. Rachel Amber got an A for turning in lo-fi Polaroid portraits of herself taken in what looked like a dirty hovel.

She spent the following evening in Nathan's dorm room, crying out and cursing Rachel Amber's name like it would fix everything.

"Rach isn't that bad, you know," Nathan had told her when she'd stopped shaking and after they'd downed half a bottle of wine each. "She's never meant to hurt you."

 _Rach_. That stuck in Victoria's throat like she'd swallowed a rock. _Rach._

Nathan barely calls her _Vic_ any more. Only when he knows she's hurting and is desperately trying to smooth the cracks. It's an illusion of closeness that doesn't exist. Not now. Not when Nathan keeps getting pulled further and further into the Vortex and Victoria hovers on the outskirts, lost but too far gone to step out now.

Each time she hopes it'll change, that Nathan will surface again and it'll be the two of them together against the world, in a kind of unbreakable solidarity that Victoria craves like oxygen. She doesn't like to think about the loneliness that swirls inside her, just another element to the anger that threatens to undermine everything she stands for.

She tries to ignore the feeling as the night goes on, drinking and making a façade of enjoying herself in a decidedly empty VIP section. This close to the holidays, most people have gone home, have escaped Blackwell's choking grip for a few painfully short weeks.

But Taylor is here, and Nathan is here, and Rachel fucking Amber is here, so the party isn't quite dead. Not yet.

Fewer and fewer people have been showing up in the VIP section; Courtney's informed them that fewer people in general are showing up to Vortex parties, with a look on her face like she's been told the world might end.

Rachel had laughed at that and simply said, "Maybe people are sick of being around us rich assholes."

Rachel isn't even rich. She lives in a make-do suburban house a few blocks away from the beach front with faded colours adorning the tired exterior. Not dirt poor, but not Vortex rich. Not like the rest of them.

But they all love her anyway. _Everyone_ loves Rachel Amber; at this point, it's pretty much a universal truth, as accepted as it is that shadow is one of the integral components of any photograph.

Victoria can still ignore it, for now. She repeats to herself that as long as she doesn't let Rachel get to her, she'll have a good time.

It works up until the moment that Taylor gets a text from her dad that sends her rushing out of the party with tears in her eyes. When Victoria asks, all Taylor says is _my mom_ and she knows not to press further.

The effect of Taylor's absence is high-instantaneous. Victoria, quite suddenly, feels terribly alone among the dozen or so people pretending they're enjoying themselves. Names and faces she doesn't care about and doesn't care to remember.

At some point, Hayden slides up to her with doped-up eyes and a shit-eating grin. "Victoria," he slurs, swaying in a way that is entirely not deliberate. "You look good tonight."

"Really? I never knew," Victoria retorts, feeling her insides turn to ice.

"Man, cheer up," he says. "It sucks enough that there's, like, nobody here, but do you have to drag the mood down, too?"

"What do you want," she says. It's not a question, said piercingly enough that it actually startles the boy for a few seconds.

"I, uh," he fumbles. "Me and the guys still have some leftover weed. You wanna have some?"

It's the look on his face, somewhere between lust-driven infatuation and fucking plastered, that is the last straw for Victoria.

"Go fucking tweak by yourself," she says, standing up from the couch abruptly enough that it sends her wine-soaked brain spinning. "I have better things to do than sit around at this dead-end party."

Then she turns and walks out the doors, as Hayden mumbles something like "suit yourself then" that is barely audible over the music. She doesn't know where Nathan is right now, and to be frank, she doesn't fucking _care_. She just needs to be out of there.

There's a biting chill to the December air as Victoria strides across the Blackwell campus, not quite sure where her feet are guiding her, but not quite caring, either. There's a nicotine craving at the back of her throat, and that's the extent of her thought process right now.

Any more than that and there is a real danger that she might truly lash out, like a warped imitation of Nathan when he thinks to do coke after not taking his meds for a couple of days.

It's clear enough out that Victoria can see her frosted breath drifting up into the sky in lazy wisps, a scene you'd see in someone's skilled yet uninspired portfolio. _I can do better_ , she thinks.

Then, _No, I can't_.

By the time she rounds the corner and makes her way down the steps to the parking lot, she's aware of another presence. It's enough to stop her in her tracks.

Rachel Amber sits on the bottom step, painted in sepia by the street light, lazily taking a drag from a cigarette with a forlorn look on her face, a golden beacon in the darkness. She has her plaid shirt fastened up, and hunches her legs together in a way that prevents the rips in her skinny jeans from being exposed to the elements.

Victoria stiffens, and very nearly begins to rush to her dorm, before Rachel lifts her head and looks right at her.

"Victoria," she says, and that's enough to keep Victoria standing right where she is. "You okay?"

There's a vulnerability to her that makes Victoria viscerally uncomfortable. She pulls a cigarette from her own pocket, and lights it up without breaking eye contact. "I'm just fine," she finally replies.

Rachel blinks, an unreadable expression crossing her face before she lets out a breath. "Party too much for you, too?"

"Not worth my time," Victoria retorts, taking a drag that synchronises perfectly with Rachel's movements. "There's no fucking party. It's just Hayden and his bros getting stoned out of their minds."

"Huh," Rachel says, as if Victoria's imparting some great wisdom. "I guess that's one way of seeing it."

"I guess so, too," Victoria says, her entire body bristling with the desire for this conversation to be _over_. "You can only cover shit with glitter for so long."

Rachel laughs at that, in her idiosyncratic Rachel Amber way. The smile she puts on doesn't reach her eyes. A lot of expressions never really meet her eyes. She breathes out a sigh of smoke that wafts past Victoria's face. It smells sweet; not your everyday kind of tobacco, for sure. Something above her class. "You can't be too cruel, though. It's a party club pretty much run by high-school boys. Can't expect much there."

Victoria doesn't fail to notice the way Rachel excludes herself without elevating herself. "Maybe it's not just the bros dragging the Vortex down." She glares right at her, a challenge.

Rachel acknowledges it, and outplays Victoria without touching the bait. "Look, Victoria," she says. "I don't get what the fuck I've done to upset you." A noise of frustration escapes her lips. "It's like you hate me just for existing or something, and I can't understand _why_."

 _Because you're better than me in every possible way,_ Victoria thinks first. Then, _Because you're Mark Jefferson's teacher's pet and I'm_ nothing _in his eyes._ And then, _Because you're drop dead gorgeous and talented and I'm a repulsive second-rate hack who can't compare._

"Oh, I don't know," she replies instead, haughty and feeling the anger seethe. "Maybe because for you, photography class is just another way to ride Mark Jefferson's dick."

Something in Rachel's expression shifts. "I'm not—"

"Save it," Victoria says. "There's no fucking way you don't know what you're doing when you turn up to class looking like the human embodiment of a fucking Lana Del Rey music video and Mr Jefferson can't keep his eyes off you."

"That's…" Rachel says. "Victoria, you really think I'm…?"

"I fucking know it!" Victoria snaps, suddenly less in control than she would like. "You fucking showed up to class an hour early last week and were sitting on his desk like a prized whore!"

Now, Rachel looks truly hurt, the first show of vulnerability Victoria has ever seen from her. It… doesn't make her feel good, at all.

"I was only in there because apparently Megan Weaver decided to drop out three days before our group assignment deadline," Rachel says. Tears prick the corners of her eyes and Victoria cannot look. "I was there trying to negotiate something with Mr Jefferson so I didn't fail."

"Likely fucking story," Victoria scoffs, even though there's no reason not to believe it. "I think I would notice if Megan just dropped out."

(But she hasn't seen Megan in over a week, not since she hung back after class one evening to get Mr Jefferson to help her bring up the quality of her portfolio. _Nobody's_ seen her since then, she'll later realise when she next sees Megan working part-time at the Two Whales a few months later with a haunted look to her eyes that makes her uncomfortable in ways she cannot vocalise.)

"God, you—you really are insecure, aren't you, Victoria?" Rachel says, with such _pity_ bleeding from her voice. "I don't know what you think, but I promise you that I'm not on some mission to undermine or usurp you or whatever you believe."

She's completely right, and that's what burns Victoria the most. "Well, you're doing a pretty good fucking job of it!" She's shaking, she's shaking and she can't stop, and her vision is tunnelling until all she sees is Rachel Rachel _Rachel_.

"Vic—Victoria," Rachel says. "Are you all right."

"I don't fucking need _your_ concern, bitch!" Victoria says. At some point she can't recollect, she dropped her cigarette and now it's fizzling out in a shallow, icy puddle. It's the last straw and she _has_ to turn away, before she does something she truly regrets. "Go die of an STD somewhere else, you dead-end skank."

"Stay safe tonight, okay?" Rachel calls back, a steadily distant sound as Victoria storms towards the dormitories.

It's later that evening, when she tears at her old photographs with a frustrated scream, that Victoria decides that she well and truly _hates_ Rachel Amber.

(The hate is the only impression that lasts, all the red flags of that conversation drowned in the torrent of sheer anger.)

* * *

The misty rain soaks but doesn't chill. I stand on the roof of the dorms and I don't _care_.

Blackwell is tear-soaked and haunting, an apropos reflection of too many things.

 _Nathan's been fucking arrested._

That's the thought that bounces around in my head, discordant and razor-edged. He's been arrested before, public brawls and DUIs that always somehow get expunged, but not like this.

Not with two police officers gripping onto his lanky body, looking at him like he could quite easily kill someone if they let go of him. A threat.

I can't even remember his expression in that moment he looked at me. Was it anger? Sorrow? Something deeper?

I do not know. I don't _want_ to know. He's _gone_ and that's the only thing that sticks, a scene caught in a viewfinder that vanishes before the shutter is pressed.

It doesn't really matter. He's gone and I'm here, alone with the weight of my sins.

Taylor and Courtney are still somewhere on campus, but I don't need them. I tell myself that again and again until it sticks.

A droplet rolls off my cheek and splashes to the floor, and I'm suddenly aware of the phone in my pocket and another disaster still in motion.

I hit the 'delete video' button the exact second she opens the door, and takes uneasy, shuffling steps towards me.

"I saw you from the quad," Kate Marsh says, awkward and soft. "I just… wanted to make sure you were okay, Victoria."

I turn towards her, hostility crumbling before it can even form. "I'm not," is all I can choke out.

Kate looks past me, to the edge of the roof, something uneasy in her expression. She nods. "People who are okay don't tend to stand around at the edges of rooftops, do they?"

It takes me a second to process her implications, and with an icy shock, I take a step towards her. "That's not," I say. "I wasn't…"

"I've thought about it, too," Kate says, not really looking at me. "Just walking off the edge, and… and ending it all."

Something seizes in my throat and I nearly forget to breathe. "I deleted the video," I blurt out before I realise what I'm saying.

"Thank you, Victoria," Kate says, something steady and warm in the increasingly torrid downpour. Her face is wet and I can't tell what's the true cause. "I… I'm sorry about Nathan, too."

"Nathan," I echo, hollow.

"I… don't know how much you know," Kate says, and now she's looking right at me with an unwavering gaze. "At that party, Nathan, he… he drugged me, and then he… _hurt_ me." She looks uncomfortable, deeply uncomfortable. The emotion playing across her face is reflected deep in the pit of my stomach. "Mr Jefferson, too."

 _Mr Jefferson_. I feel numb.

"Oh my God," I say, barely more than a whisper. "You were drugged, and I fucking filmed it." I'm trembling, and my sweater is soaked through, but it doesn't matter. "I should have helped you, I—"

"Please, Victoria," Kate pleads. "Don't beat yourself up about it. You didn't know."

My brain catches up to her earlier statement. "Nathan… hurt you?" I taste bile, and in my mind's eye all I can see is Nathan, as volatile and dangerous as he gets, and _Kate_ , and I want the mental image to stop. It doesn't.

"I don't really remember what happened," Kate says. "But Nathan drugged me and he and Mr Jefferson took me somewhere, and I woke up the next morning outside my dorm room feeling disgusting."

 _Kate, curled up outside her dorm room, looking bedraggled and_ off. I feel sick, the true kind of nausea that threatens to spill over into something tangible. I swallow and it does nothing. "God, I…"

I don't know what I say. I don't know what I _can_ say.

"I took a video of it," I repeat. "I fucking _knew_ there was something wrong and I still fucking filmed it."

"Victoria, I—" Kate says. She grips my hands in hers and _looks_ at me. "It's okay. I… forgive you."

It's like a scratch on a record. I pause and stare, dumb. "What…?" I manage to drag from my lips, slow and awkward.

"What you did was wrong," Kate says. "But you've acknowledged your wrong-doings, and we're still here, so… that has to count for something."

 _We're here. We're okay. We're alive._ The thought resonates with something deep and distant inside me, the ghost of memories that don't come from me hovering in my mind, threatening to solidify into something palpable for me to understand.

I start crying again, and it doesn't matter that my world is shattering to pieces, that the only people I've ever truly cared about are behind bars. It doesn't matter. I'm here. That's what matters.

"You're shivering," Kate says. "Let's get off this roof before we get sick; this day's been bad enough."

I let her lead me by the hand back through the door and down towards the dorms. The air hums with something that isn't quite a new beginning, but it's close.

* * *

The second semester starts with a light coating of something too wet to be snow on the ground that gets into Victoria's shoes and soaks her leggings. She's utterly miserable as she drags herself through the front doors and down the hall to first period photography, the only light the dim dawn rays barely piercing through the windows, tinting everything an unsettling shade of sepia.

Her first clue that something is wrong is when she sees that the door is shut, even though Mr Jefferson _never_ shuts his classroom door first thing in the morning, citing something about always being open and approachable to the students.

 _Maybe he's not here yet_ , she thinks as she slides her cold and damp gloves off her hands and into her bag.

This theory lasts all of three seconds until she hears his voice, warm and familiar, from behind the door. He laughs, then there's a feminine voice that Victoria refuses to identify, her face flushing red as her mind launches a million possible scenarios, but all of them beginning with _What is she doing here?_

She sends off a few texts to Nathan that he never responds to as she waits out in the hallway with nothing but the slowly climbing winter sun for company. He's done a lot of not-communicating over the winter break without an explanation or an excuse.

She hates how she feels he owes her. She hates how dependent on his presence she's become.

She wants him next to her right now.

A few short moments later and Victoria can hear the sound of sneakers squeaking against freshly polished floor; she doesn't know what possesses her, but she slinks around behind a stack of lockers as the classroom door opens and Rachel Amber steps out.

"Thanks so much again, Mark," she says with an airy smile, then walks down the hall away from where Victoria is barely concealed.

 _Mark_. Something sour lodges in her throat.

It's early January, yet Rachel is in her timeless shorts and plaid shirt combo like the elements don't bother her. Her bare legs show off a tattoo of a red dragon snaking around her calf that was not there before.

It looks trashy. Victoria repeats to herself until she believes it, or at least until she can stop _staring_.

Rachel vanishes behind the double doors at the end of the hallway that leads past the languages classrooms and out the back of the school to a secluded smoking spot; it's a route Victoria is more than familiar with.

Once Rachel's gone, Victoria makes her move, striding through the door to Mr Jefferson's class with purpose.

"Come in, Victoria," Mr Jefferson says dryly, even though Victoria's already halfway across the room and not exactly sure why she wants to speak to him. "You're here early."

His laptop is open. That's the first thing Victoria notices.

The second is the cable linking his professional camera to the computer.

The third is Rachel Amber's face blown up on some photo editing software, framed in chiaroscuro like a Californian daydream.

"What," Victoria says, more a strangled noise than words, "is that?" An accusatory finger points at the screen and her body goes clammy. The room might be spinning, but in this moment Victoria doesn't care.

All she cares about is why Rachel Amber's _fucking face_ is featured in a photograph bearing Mark Jefferson's signature style.

"This?" Mr Jefferson repeats, raising an eyebrow in a way that suddenly makes Victoria feel very small.

"That's Rachel Amber," Victoria says weakly. "You took her picture." Her breathing is shallow and she does _not_ sound jealous.

"Oh," Mr Jefferson says, like he hasn't even noticed himself. "That. Ah, I should explain."

"That would be nice," Victoria replies, taught and one wrong move away from embarrassing herself in front of the only man worth anything in this piece of shit academy.

"You are aware that Megan Weaver unfortunately had to leave Blackwell at the end of last semester," Mr Jefferson explains. As he talks, he unplugs the camera and shuts the laptop. "And that she was Rachel's partner for the group assignment."

"Yes," Victoria says, her words clogging up her throat. She's this side of breaking out into a cold sweat, and in this moment she's not sure if she hates Rachel Amber or herself more.

"Well, Megan left without completing the assignment," Mr Jefferson continues. "Which would have meant Rachel would have been unfairly deducted points from her final grade."

She doesn't like how he says Rachel's name. Maybe because it's something precious on his lips, something to covet and cherish. Without even trying, he makes Victoria feel like less than dirt.

"So, rather than punish Rachel for something beyond her control, I decided to help her out," Mr Jefferson says. "I took the last picture for her portfolio to finish it off. It's unorthodox, but I firmly believe all my students should have an equal chance at getting the grades they deserve."

"Uh huh," Victoria says, unsure of where to go from here. "And… uh, when will we be getting our grades back?"

"Should be either the end of this week or the next," Mr Jefferson says. His expression shifts. "For now, just focus on making sure you're all caught up on your reading for the first unit. The second semester will be a lot different from the first."

"Of course, Mr Jefferson," Victoria says, acutely feeling like she's been caught on the wrong foot.

"Anyway," he says, standing up from his desk and pocketing his camera in one swift movement. "We still have half an hour before class starts. Do you have anything else to ask?"

 _Why the fuck do you like Rachel Amber better than me?_ "No, not really," Victoria says.

Mr Jefferson smiles. It doesn't reach his eyes. "In that case, I'm going to go grab a coffee," he says with a hollow chuckle. "You're welcome to stay in here until class starts."

"Thank you," Victoria says, watching him leave without so much as a glance for her.

She takes her usual seat and sets her notebook down neatly, nestling her phone between the pages, shivering a little in the chill that strangles the room.

 _She called him Mark_ , she thinks with toxic bitterness.

 _He let her._

(Not once does she give thought to the fact that Rachel's picture had her new tattoo on clear display, even though the picture was for last semester's assignment. Nor does she give thought to why Mr Jefferson still had it open on his computer. An ugly envy that paints her face red and makes it hard to breathe kills any rational thought beyond that.)

* * *

"Take a seat, Miss Chase."

The police station is a sterile wash of greys and dim lighting that puts me on edge straight away. I slide down into the chair, trying not to notice how the padding has been sucked out, leaving it as cold and uncomfortable as the rest of the room.

Officer Berry sits at the other side of the desk. There is a camera between us. I do not look at the lens. I cannot look at the lens. "I trust you know why we've brought you down here today."

I nod with a numb ache that isn't entirely physical. "It—it's to do with Nathan, and Mr Jefferson." My voice sounds small and weak. I hate it.

Berry nods, grim and professional. "We're aware that you're close to Mr Prescott," he says, "and we were wondering if you could tell us anything you know about the alleged incidents he has been part of. Anything you know, anything he told you – all of it would be helpful."

It's hard to process when I still don't quite know _what_ happened, beyond—

I swallow back dread. "I only know what Kate Marsh told me," I say, my throat turning to sandpaper. "About… what they did to her."

Berry presses his lips together. "And what about Mr Prescott? Did he tell you anything suspicious? Do anything that you think may be significant?"

I can't help but immediately notice how unprofessional this interview is, like a desperate last attempt for information.

It almost makes me want to keep quiet, but my mouth starts running before I can do otherwise. "There was… one thing that Nathan did," I say. "The past few days, he kept saying 'Rachel in the Dark Room' again and again." I swallow. Tell myself not to cry, not to show weakness. "I think it had something to do with Rachel Amber."

"Rachel Amber, huh?" Berry says; I do not fail to notice how his eyebrows lift up. "Not the first time we've heard that name today."

"What does that mean?" I say, desperate.

"I can't tell you any more than that right now," he replies with the illusion of competence. "Other than we have reason to believe Rachel Amber was involved in the actions taken by Mark Jefferson and Nathan Prescott."

My mind jumps to the foregone conclusion as if I already know. Maybe I do. Maybe I've known for a while. "So there is a Dark Room?" I ask.

"I didn't tell you that," Officer Berry confirms.

 _Rachel in the Dark Room. Kate in the Dark Room._

It's familiar. It's familiar and I don't know why; the words are just there, as if transplanted from another life.

"One more thing, Miss Chase," he says, reaching to pull something out of an evidence bag. "Are you at all familiar with this?"

He drops a bright red binder onto the desk. It's completely empty, save for the label on the side.

 _VICTORIA_ is written there in sharp-edged handwriting that I recognise as Nathan's.

 _Victoria in the Dark Room._

I start crying. "I don't want to do this," I say. "I can't."

"Do you recognise it?" Berry asks again, softer.

 _Yes_ , I want to say. _But not from the me here._

Memories from a life I never lived edge closer and closer to the forefront of my mind, threatening to make me remember terrible things I never experienced.

"No," I say instead. "I want to stop the interview."

The next few minutes go by in a blur, the horrifying kind of upset that saps your strength permeating the air.

Only when I'm out of the interview room and walking down the hallway can I begin to breathe again.

* * *

Nathan's truck splutters in an unhealthy way as they drive down the out-of-sight woodland back roads to the beach front. The sun is barely peeking over the horizon and there's something hard and heavy in Nathan's expression as he grips the steering wheel with white knuckles.

There's an almost-imperceptible twitch to his body language that Victoria can't quite ignore. He has his camera with him less and less, too. She can't ignore that either.

"Frank _is_ available, right?" she asks, if only to kill the silence threatening to choke them. In her lap are her camera and purse, a neat amount of cash tucked away inside. She doesn't really need any more weed right now, doesn't even really like it all that much, but she couldn't let Nathan drive out to meet Frank alone. Not since he's decided to take more pills that aren't prescribed to him and change moods like flipping a coin and show up to class increasingly less often.

She's worried, deeply worried, but has no idea what to say, how to say it. But she can be with him. That much she can do.

"Better be," Nathan replies, unfocused and jittery all at once. The truck suddenly swerves and Victoria's stomach lurches. He's on something strong enough that he shouldn't be behind any wheel, but that's a subject she doesn't know how to broach. There's a thin chasm between the two of them that wasn't there before, and she doesn't want to be the one to increase the distance.

His visits to Frank Bowers are getting more common, more regular. _Addiction_ , an ugly part of Victoria's mind whispers, but she ignores the thought. If Nathan goes under, she won't be able to pull him back to the surface.

She could very easily lose Nathan Prescott; Victoria is hyper-aware of this fact with every misstep in their communication, every raised voice, every breakdown.

What they have, it won't last. Be it tomorrow or a couple of years now, they will drift apart. She will lose him.

It's an inevitability neither of them wants to talk about.

"Any of this for next week's Vortex party?" Victoria asks. The tentatively dubbed Block Party is due to take place a week from now, on the twenty-eighth, in a rented warehouse bought by Sean Prescott just for the occasion. It's the first major party to take place off-campus – the first one guaranteed to be free of both faculty and police interference. It's lawless in a way that makes Victoria's stomach flip.

Nathan shakes his head viciously. "Nah," he says. "Not for the Vortex." It's just ominous enough to put Victoria on edge.

"What," she replies, "so you're gonna blow over a grand on shit just for yourself?" She's seen the wedges of cash barely concealed in his jacket pockets, and it takes all her strength not to think the word _overdose_ aloud.

Nathan would, and that's the frightening part.

"Drop it, Victoria," he shoots back, body going rigid with tension. "Seriously, don't."

"Whatever," Victoria says. "I'm not going to judge you or anything."

They come out of the woods, and before Victoria can even begin to admire the view of the lazy waves lapping against the shore in the morning light, Nathan pulls into a parking spot forcefully enough that Victoria's head jerks forward and her camera nearly falls from her lap.

Nathan says nothing as he gets out of the truck; doesn't even wait for her as he makes a beeline for the dirty and dusty RV hanging in the shade of imposing pine trees. She finds herself short of breath as she power walks to catch up.

Frank's mutt starts barking well before either of them reach the RV door, muffled through the walls of the vehicle but still vicious enough for a primal part of Victoria's brain to register it as a threat.

Despite this, Nathan still closes the distance and raps his knuckles against the door with a shaking hand. "Frank," he says, devoid of inflection but carrying something so much deeper. Victoria still hangs a few paces behind, unsure of herself even now.

"Gimme a fucking sec," is the response they get, Frank Bowers's gruff voice overshadowed by a door slamming and a couple of destructive-sounding bangs. Victoria can almost picture the destruction in her mind's eye, see it in slow motion, the aesthetic composition of the chaos.

She'd rather be on the beach, taking in the first breaths of dawn with her camera, but instead she is here, acting as the only support Nathan Prescott will truly have.

Because that's the thing; people like them, they will only ever have each other. And when even that is gone, they will have nothing and no one. They will be alone.

Victoria brushes the thought away just as the RV door swings open. Frank Bowers steps out, hair greasy and face scruffy with a new tattoo poking out from the collar of his dirty T-shirt. "Rott?" he says, almost bewildered but still using code-names out of instinct. "It's five in the fucking morning. What the fuck do you want?"

Frank's dog keeps barking in the background. Victoria hears movement from within the RV: furniture moving and the creaking of some kind of door that makes Frank glance back, something indescribable in his expression.

Nathan shifts. Victoria readies herself for him to list off exactly what and how much he wants; one hand rests on the cash in her purse, ready to pull it out.

But then Nathan does a double take and, wordlessly, passes Frank a sheet of paper covered in scratchy handwriting. Frank takes it and reads over it, eyebrows seeming to vanish into his hairline. "Jesus, kid. All that? You got a fucking death-wish or something?"

"I've got the money," is all Nathan says and Victoria's stomach flips with the sensation that something is _wrong_. "The stuff on the top's for her." He gestures a hand towards where Victoria stands; she feels acutely out of place, and folds her arms defensively before she even knows what she's doing.

"Well, I'm not here to pass moral judgement," Frank grumbles. He turns back towards the RV, face hardening. "I'll be a few minutes getting all this shit together for you." Then, he walks back inside, leaving the door wide open. Victoria tries to sneak a glance inside, but apart from dusty wooden surfaces, she can't really make out much of anything.

Nathan looks at her and continues to stay silent. His eyes dart around like a cornered animal, trapped and terrified and unsure whether or not to lash out or to flee.

"What was all that?" Victoria asks. "I thought we were just getting weed."

Nathan doesn't meet her eyes. "Wanted some other stuff," he says. "Not your problem."

"It is if it's enough for you to fucking OD on," Victoria says, feeling a tightness in her chest. "Nathan, tell me you're not doing anything stupid."

Nathan shakes his head fervently, but never says the words.

"I worry about you," she continues when she realises she's not getting a verbal response. "I worry about you because you're my… friend."

 _Friend_ doesn't fit right, doesn't seem to convey what they have, but Victoria can't find another word for it. _Soulmates_ , she might say if she were more poetic and there was any kind of physical attraction between them. _Family_ , she might say if her feelings toward him weren't so complicated, a riddled tangle that begins and ends at undefinable points.

"Me, too," Nathan says in agreement, but to _what_ Victoria isn't sure. "Victoria, I—"

He's interrupted by Frank returning, opaque baggies in his hand and a small cardboard box of something Victoria can't see and doesn't want to. He raises the smaller baggie. "This one's for the lady," he says with something that isn't quite condescension in his tone. "Heads up."

Frank tosses the baggie, and Victoria catches it, and that's the extent of their interaction. "How much will that—" she begins to say.

"I'm paying," Nathan interrupts, passing Frank an alarmingly-sized wad of cash in exchange for the drugs. Without pause, Nathan opens his school bag and delicately places it in there. Victoria slips the weed into her purse, and that's that.

"Don't kill yourself, kid," Frank says as he counts the bills. "You're the best paying customer in this shithole; good business is harder to come by these days." Satisfied with the money, Frank pockets it and scowls, but it doesn't meet his eyes. "Now get the fuck out of here before someone sees you goodie-goodies doing something you shouldn't."

Victoria turns immediately, ready to get out of here, when another voice speaks up, completely unexpected but disgustingly familiar in a way that makes Victoria stiffen. "Frankie? What's going on?"

That voice. That's—

"Just some punk-ass kids, Rach. I'll be done in a sec."

 _Rach_.

 _Frankie._

Of course. _Of fucking course_.

Victoria lets out a laugh that feels like her stomach's been punched.

"It's really fucking early. Who the hell would come to you at this time?"

The voice grows clearer and Victoria spins back around like an ugly reflex.

A hand nudges Frank out of the way, and Rachel Amber is standing there in a stained band tee that falls to her knees and hair that looks like it hasn't been washed in a good couple of days. But her earring is still there, the one feature that is as much a part of her as any limb. She blinks, first in confusion, and then recognition. "Nate? Victoria?"

" _Rachel_ ," Nathan says, strangled. It kind of sounds like dying. "What the _fuck_."

There's something to Rachel's eyes and stance that gives away that she's on something hardcore to Victoria. The baggy shirt almost hides it, but Victoria can tell that Rachel's lost weight, and not in a good way. There's an almost-hollowness to her cheeks that threatens to materialise itself in permanence, and her eyes are glazed in a way that makes it hard for her to keep focus; her gaze drifts to the way the trees shift in the sea breeze, to a gull flying overhead, to the waves crashing on the shore, before returning to rapidly vacillating between Nathan and Victoria.

She looks fucking disgusting, like a Rachel Amber from another reality. It's hard to reconcile this image with the effortlessly enigmatic girl that dances from clique to clique and rises above anything and everything Blackwell throws at her.

Even her trashy punk friend with the terrible blue dye job looks more put together than she does right now.

Victoria waits for the rush of schadenfreude, but it never comes. There is only the deeply unsettling feeling of seeing Rachel Amber fallen so far from grace. Some cruel, cruel part of Victoria's brain wants to take a picture, to immortalise this moment to look back on whenever Rachel puts herself together again, to know that in this one moment, Victoria was _better_ than her in every way.

She's still uncomfortable. Rachel stares at her like a frightened doe, and Victoria cannot feel good about herself. So she barks out a forced laugh. "Oh my fucking God," she says, not believing a single word she says. "Was Mr Jefferson's dick too high-class for your whore ass?" Another fake laugh. "This must be a new low, even for you."

Nathan looks at her, a warning that Victoria disregards. She _needs_ to feel triumph over Rachel in this moment, needs to shake the growing horror blossoming in her core.

Rachel raises an arm. Victoria can see the bones. "Victoria," she says, half-dazed.

Victoria doesn't let her get any more than that in. "So much for just being _acquainted_ with Frank, or whatever you said," she scoffs. "Trash attracts trash, I suppose."

"Seriously, cut it out," Nathan says. He turns to Rachel. "We were just leaving. _Come on_ Victoria."

Rachel is still staring at the two of them as Nathan grabs Victoria's arm and begins to drag both of them back towards his truck. Victoria tries to stand her ground but Nathan is stronger.

"Victoria," Rachel says again, looking like her heart's about to break. _Like a junkie looking for her next fix_ , Victoria tells herself but doesn't believe it. "Be careful."

That's all she says before bowing her head, mournful, and vanishing back into the RV.

"She's fucking a drug dealer," Victoria says the moment she and Nathan are back in the truck and driving back towards Blackwell. "And she's on fucking coke or heroin or something. Can you believe it?"

Nathan keeps his eyes on the road. "Stop being obsessed with Rachel," he says slowly, and it's like a slap to the face. "She doesn't matter."

 _She does_ , Victoria very nearly retorts. _She's the_ only _thing that matters_.

(They drive the rest of the way in silence, and Victoria can't put that final image of Rachel standing the doorway of Frank Bowers's RV out of her mind. She doesn't think she ever will.)

* * *

My hands are trembling as I bat at tears before they can roll down my face and compromise my fragile mask. My throat feels clogged and nausea rises in my stomach.

I had a binder. Nathan and Jefferson were planning to do to me what they did to Kate.

Swallowing does nothing to bury the urge to throw up here and now. I just end up shaking a little more.

Nathan and Jefferson… I _knew_ them, _thought_ I knew them. They were the only constants in this world, the only people I could reliably _care_ about.

They're also sexual predators that nearly drove a teenage girl to suicide. Once I think that I can't take the thought back.

 _How many others?_ Kate couldn't have been the first; what they did to her was too clean, too professional.

 _Rachel in the Dark Room._ I feel ill.

I do and I don't want to know what the Dark Room is, what they did to them. How it ended with Kate ready to end her life and Rachel Amber vanishing from existence.

I turn down another hallway, my body aching out of grief as I let my legs guide me out of here.

I want to be back in my dorm room. I want to scream and cry until the hurt goes. I know it never will. _I was meant to be next._

That sticks in my throat the hardest, knowing that Nathan, despite how close we were (or _because of that_ , something sickening whispers in my mind), was completely willing and ready to do to me what he did to Kate.

But I do not hate him. I'm afraid of him, horrified by him, but I don't hate him. I want to, for all he's done, but then I remember him at his most vulnerable, most easily manipulated, and all that's left is a torrent of conflicting emotions.

Nathan deserves to be punished. Nathan doesn't. I'm stuck on the precipice, unsure of whether I should condone or condemn, knowing that when the choice is made, it will be permanent.

My shoes alternate between clacking and squeaking against the meticulously polished floor, the only sound to be heard other than my shallow breathing and uneasy heartbeat.

The walls are lined with doors and one-way windows that look into interrogation rooms, each one identical to the one I was just in.

They're all empty. Something about that strikes a chord of unease deep within me that quickens my pace and shallows my breath; an absence where something _should_ be.

It's when I pass the last room that I re-evaluate this observation with something akin to a rock lodging itself in my throat. I stop so suddenly that the momentum nearly sends me falling to the ground.

He's in there, looking down at the desk with red-rimmed eyes and a tremor worse than I've ever seen. His jacket's been discarded at some point, leaving white shirtsleeves rolled up enough that the milky-white lines on his forearms are visible to the world, hands cuffed and bound to the table.

I stand there, looking at Nathan Prescott through the buffer of the one-way glass, barely able to breathe. It feels a lot like observing an animal in a zoo enclosure, like I'm a voyeur to something I do not know and never will understand.

 _You had a binder for me_ , I think as he shuffles in his seat, looking in my direction but not seeing me. There's something in his expression that makes my heart skip a beat; a kind of alien blend of sadness and fear and unfiltered rage.

I am acutely aware that if he could, Nathan Prescott might very well try to kill me.

Mark Jefferson is not here, probably held somewhere else, but I do not care. What I feel towards him is a simple shock of betrayal and disgust, nothing like the thorny, knotted mess that I feel whenever I think about Nathan and what we had, and what he was willing to do to me.

It's increasingly apparent that I don't know him. Maybe never knew him. The foundations of something brittle yet strong erode and erode until they crumble into dust. I see Kate Marsh. I see Rachel Amber.

Nathan looks up at me, and I meet the eyes of a complete stranger.

The choice is made before I'm even aware of it; on autopilot I pivot away from the glass and hurriedly walk the rest of the way down the hallway. I move past police officers and reception desks and a message board lined with PSAs, alerts, and warnings.

Rachel Amber's poster sits in the middle, a sun at the heart of a galaxy.

I choke back tears as I push open the doors and step outside the police station and into the evening air. There's a soft breeze that's cool without being chilly and the sky is a clear golden, completely at odds with the miserable, suffocating drizzle from earlier.

The sun moves in the sky, too slow to escape the eclipse that quickly shadows it. The warmth and the beauty of the moment are swallowed in an instant, leaving nothing but a haunting chill and the thrum of a greater energy in the air.

I take pictures of it without thinking, my body moving out of a pre-emptive déjà vu. Gulls fly in the air and the waves lap against the shore of the beach across the road and the atmosphere carries a sublime power that makes it impossible to walk away.

In between one snap of the shutter and the next, I start crying. It's not healing or deep or profound, it's just me standing in the parking lot of the police station in the middle of an eclipse with tears streaming down my face and my body shivering out of something far greater than the chill in the air.

That's the thing; I want it to be beautiful, to be tragic, to _mean something_. But it doesn't. It just _is_ , and that has to be enough.

When the setting sun is allowed to shine again and I'm all cried out with a camera full of photographs, I don't think of him. His presence is severed, a void by my side that hurts but is already filling, cracks smoothing over a separation that was always inevitable.

And as I begin the walk back up to Blackwell in the dying light of the evening, I don't really think of Nathan Prescott ever again.

* * *

March 28, 2013, is the last time Victoria ever speaks with Rachel Amber. It's somewhere in the thrum of noise churned out by the shitty DJ and the stale smell of cheap alcohol and too many bodies in one building.

Nathan's off somewhere getting high with the other Vortex bros, leaving Victoria in the company of a slightly tipsy Taylor who thinks her flirting is subtle. Victoria lets her have it, if only because it feels nice to have _someone_ there with her.

Rachel seems to materialise out of nowhere, suddenly standing a few feet from Victoria with one hand on her earring and a worried expression on her face.

She hovers for a few moments, seemingly unsure of herself, before taking one step forward. "Victoria," Rachel says, voice weak and lacking all that daydreamer's confidence that has always been ubiquitously _her_.

It's jarring enough that Victoria is unable to ignore her. " _What_ ," she says through gritted teeth, taking a sip of wine as Rachel just stares. She's wearing her usual pseudo-grunge-punk getup, but is still shockingly thin and with a tremble that immediately puts Victoria in mind of Nathan.

"Please, let's not do this bullshit right now," Rachel says, almost pleading, a desperate edge to her hollow eyes. "I need to talk with you."

Victoria gives a derisive scoff. "Yeah fucking right," she says, taking a step towards her. "More like you got bored of fucking that lowlife and you don't have the cash to be a crackhead. Leave me the fuck alone, skank."

Rachel sighs, almost rolling her eyes. "I'm serious," she presses. "This is bigger than some high school clique drama."

Victoria quashes a noise of frustration. "That's all you fucking are!" she snaps, suddenly on the verge of hysteria because nothing about this conversation feels quite _right_.

Taylor's carefully detached herself and is making her way towards the couch where Courtney sits with a bong. _Good_ , Victoria thinks. This is not something she wants to drag others into.

"But you don't really believe that," Rachel says, a simple certainty that somehow makes her words irrefutable. Victoria feels her argument die in her throat. "We both know that."

"What the fuck do you want, then," she says, not a question. Questioning Rachel would be admitting a weakness Victoria cannot afford to show.

Rachel blinks a few times before she can focus on Victoria, something unpleasant dancing behind her eyes like cracks in a mask. "It's about Nathan," she says with a quiet determination.

It's enough to make Victoria feel like her perspective was just jarred to the side. "I'm sorry, what?" she says. "Nathan?"

She steals a glance to where Nathan is sitting, at a table with lines of white powder everywhere. She stops looking.

Rachel nods. "He's…" she begins, trying and failing to find the words. Her skin is pale; Victoria's not noticed it before, but in the harsh lighting of the party, the change to her complexion is clear as day. "He's dangerous. He might hurt someone."

That ticks something off in the back of Victoria's mind that she ignores. "Are you fucking serious?" she says, unsure of when she folded her arms, but she's on the defensive now. "Just because he takes meds and doesn't have the easiest time doesn't mean he's actually _dangerous_." Her throat feels dry and she wants to flee and she doesn't know _why_.

"You don't know that," Rachel says, her voice low and her eyes wide. A tired doe-in-the-headlights routine that actually feels _genuine_ this time.

"Oh, and you do?" Victoria retorts, pressing the advantage.

"More than you think you do," Rachel says. It's not barbed. Not an accusation. Just said with a sheer kind of honestly that threatens to knock Victoria off-kilter.

"So you're suddenly the expert on _my_ best friend," Victoria says. "Nathan and I have been close the entire year. We get each other." She says that, believes it, but doubt trickles through cracks she didn't even know were there. "I think I would know if something was up."

"I'm not trying to argue with you, Victoria," Rachel pleads. "I just want you to hear me out."

"Well, I'm listening, aren't I," Victoria says flatly. God, she wants a drink, or a smoke, or _something_. "So speak."

Rachel doesn't; instead, she just swallows and bats away sudden tears. "I…"

"So now you can't talk," Victoria says, forcing herself to be dismissive, forcing herself not to care. "So much for Mr Jefferson's eloquent star student."

"Don't—" Rachel says. "Don't try to make this about M—Mr Jefferson. That's not what we're talking about."

Victoria catches the way Rachel trips over his name, the barely concealed _Mark_ that still makes her blood boil. " _Everything_ is about Mr Jefferson with you," she says. "You practically fucking worship him like you have no shame."

"It's not like that," Rachel says, actually expecting Victoria to accept that as enough of an explanation.

"What? You'd prefer it to be described as shamelessly _fucking_ him instead?" Victoria retorts, feeling the lid on her temper so close to falling off and a year of built-up resentment threatening to spill out like an ugly, hateful tsunami.

"Victoria, could you just shut the _fuck up_ for two seconds and _listen_ to what I have to say," Rachel says, desperate, almost seething. There's an expression on her gorgeous face that both captivates and repulses Victoria. Her hand doesn't leave her earring. "Something's going on at Blackwell. Something wrong."

"Sure, of course there is," Victoria dismisses. She can't tear her eyes away from Rachel.

Rachel ignore the barbed response. "I'm not fucking around," she says. "Someone tipped Mr Madsen off; he reported me to Principal Wells for dealing drugs. Fucking _drugs_."

Victoria feels herself bristle. "Don't try to play innocent," she says. "I _saw_ you with Frank. You were off your face on some shit like a gutter junkie. Maybe you really _were_ dealing on campus."

"That's not what I'm getting at," Rachel says. She leans in, close enough that Victoria can feel her breath on her face, her words a few short inches from her lips. A mixture of hate and something more makes her want to lean in and close the distance. "Nobody knew about me and Frank except for you and Nathan; not even _Chloe_ knew."

"Okay, so?" Victoria says, feeling her face go hot.

"So," Rachel says. "I know that it wasn't you who reported me."

Victoria makes the connection before Rachel even finishes. "Why would Nathan do that?" she asks, trying to come off as sceptical. It sounds like desperate denial instead.

Rachel looks Victoria right in the eyes; it makes Victoria feel physically weak. "I don't know," she says. "But he did it to try and ruin my reputation." There's now something deeper, something unsettling, spread across Rachel's perfect features. "He's never _cared_ before."

There's a long moment of silence where Victoria and Rachel just stand there, faces inches from each other where the conversation could go a hundred different ways.

Rachel steps away first. "He's doing something, Victoria," she says. "I don't know what it is and I don't know why he'd do it, but he's up to something really fucking strange."

Victoria goes to force herself to let out another haughty scoff, but Rachel lifts a hand first.

"You don't believe me," she says. "And I won't be able to convince you of anything, but you deserve to know."

Victoria's throat suddenly goes dry in a way she can't attribute to either the alcohol or her complicated feelings towards Rachel. "I don't…" she tries to say, but the words die on her lips.

Rachel's expression is an enigma. "Goodbye, Victoria," she says. "Be careful."

Then she turns and walks away, and Victoria very nearly tries to stop her.

(Her last impression of Rachel, the last _real_ one, is of a head of brittle golden hair and a single blue feather gliding through the crowd, a serenely beautiful image that vanishes far too quickly.)

* * *

Max Caulfield wins the Everyday Heroes contest. She looks half-lost as Principal Wells hands her a framed copy of her picture, like a deer caught in the headlights that doesn't know what to do with herself. She half-hides her face behind the frame, like it'll make her invisible.

I try to be courteous and polite, but I still end up choking back barely-contained jealousy. Taylor touches my shoulder and gives me a sympathetic look that helps, but also sends me back in time a year to the last contest.

I glance at the desk at the front of the room. Nathan is not there. Nathan will never be there again.

Rachel Amber is dead, and Mark Jefferson is locked up for the rest of his life. The ghosts of the past, all of them gone.

Some part of me wonders if that bothers me more than losing another photo contest.

Kate Marsh and Alyssa stand at the front of the room, applauding as Wells launches into a congratulatory speech that has too many shades of last year for my liking. Max blushes, trying to make herself as small as possible.

"Now, despite this truly unfortunate week," Wells is saying. "I would like to congratulate Maxine Caulfield for being Blackwell Academy's shining light in these dark times." He looks at her, half-expectant, half an ugly, selfish kind of pride.

"I-it's Max, sir," she stutters out, blushing. "And… I can't believe I actually won; it still doesn't feel real."

Wells laughs and Kate beams and I feel like a shitty person. "Well, it is," he says. "You should be proud of your hard work and enjoy the reward."

It's more sincere than Jefferson ever was, but only just.

Taylor is still touching my arm; I guide her hand down into my own and lean into the comforting support of having someone by my side. In the wake of it all, she's the only thing left.

When Max falls silent again, Wells exchanges a few more words, outlining the precise details of Max's prize, then excuses himself as the bell rings out and the day ends.

"Hey, you still on for the party tonight?" Taylor asks as I put my camera and notebook away.

"Of course," I say without even looking. "Life still has to go on."

Nathan and Rachel and Jefferson are gone, but the world hasn't stopped. It never will. "Cool," Taylor says. "I've gotta make a call to my mom this evening, so you wanna get ready together at seven?"

"Seven's fine," I say, sliding the bag over my shoulder. "See you then."

Taylor pulls me in for a hug. It's warm and comforting and I squeeze back, tighter. She's the one that eventually pulls away. "I'll text you," she says, and walks out of the room just behind Stella and Daniel.

It's only in the ensuing silence punctuated by the ticking of the clock that I notice that the only people left in the room are me and Max. She stands there, putting her things in her bag with one hand and texting with the other.

There's a moment where we both just stand there, saying nothing but looking at each other. A million different emotions fly through my mind and dance across Max's face.

I break the silence first. "Max," I say. "Congratulations on winning."

Max bows her head shyly. "Thanks, Victoria," she says. "And, uh… I'm sorry. I hope you're doing all right after…"

I see Nathan and Jefferson being led out in handcuffs and breathe until I'm calm. "I'm doing," I say.

"I know you were close to Nathan," Max says. "He was like your best friend."

I stiffen and force the tension away. "He was," I say wistfully. "But there will be another." I'll tell myself that until it sticks and the raw loss doesn't hurt as much, even if that day is not today.

"You know, my door is always open," Max says. "That is… if you ever want to talk." There's nothing but warmth and concern in her eyes. I swallow back the lump in my throat before it can manifest into something embarrassing.

"Thanks, Max," I say. "Your photo was really good, too; your vision is like no other."

Max blushes. "I… Wow, Victoria," she stutters out. "That means a lot, especially coming from you." A small smile grows on her lips. "I've always admired your work; I meant it when I said your eye was Avedon-esque."

My face goes warm and I have to wipe away the barest beginnings of a tear before it betrays me. "You know, we should work together some time," I offer. "The way you weave nostalgia into the framing of your work is like no other; I'd love to see what the two of us could do." I feel my own lips pull back in a smile. "Or, you know, just hang out."

"I'd love to, Victoria," Max says. "When I get back from San Francisco, let's meet up. Maybe Monday?" There's something in her expression, something like doubt but that goes way deeper.

"It's a date," I say, making it final before I can back out. "To Monday."

"Yeah," Max replies. Her phone buzzes and she skims over a message. "I have to get going; need to start packing for the trip."

"I get it," I say. "I hope everything goes well for you, Max. San Francisco will be good for you."

"Me, too," Max says. "I'll see you Monday." Still with a smile on her face, she turns away and walks out of the classroom.

And then I'm alone with the ticking of the clock and my own thoughts. Everything still hurts, maybe it won't ever _stop_ hurting, but now, at least, it feels like things might eventually get better.

Like there's a chance.

* * *

Rachel begins to attend class less and less, speaking with fewer and fewer people, until on the 22nd of April, she disappears for good.

Nobody realises it, not really, until the following afternoon, when she isn't present for Mr Jefferson's photography class, the only thing she reliably showed up to despite her downward spiral.

"Has anyone seen Rachel?" Mr Jefferson asks when he notices her empty chair for the first time, and Victoria immediately feels dread flood her system.

Nathan isn't here, too, but he tends to fuck off during afternoon classes, and Victoria heard from him less than half an hour ago.

This, though, this isn't right.

"She wasn't in Mrs Hoida's literature class," Courtney says, unconcerned.

"She missed music rehearsal, too." This from Luke Parker, normally hiding behind his baseball cap but now looking Mr Jefferson right in the eyes, a subtle kind of tension in the air. "Mr Palmer said he was gonna send a message out to the faculty to tell her to see him after school."

"Well, I haven't received anything," Mr Jefferson says, not really bothered despite the concerned frown on his face. "I'd hoped Rachel would still keep showing up to my class, at least."

Something rings false in his words; maybe he's read something on Rachel's file that Victoria isn't privy to. Maybe he's secretly glad the little whore's not here, but can't show it.

"It seems my class just keeps getting smaller and smaller," Mr Jefferson says, half to himself.

Victoria looks around, and notices for the first time how true those words are. Of the eight who sat in this class on that first day in September, only five remain. Evan, Luke, Taylor, Courtney, and Victoria herself.

The classroom suddenly feels very, very empty.

"May the odds be ever in our favour," Taylor jokes, but there's a nervous edge to her voice.

"Well, let's hope the numbers stop dropping," Mr Jefferson says, going for friendly but landing just this side of stern. _Tense_ , Victoria thinks. "I'd like to finish my first year of teaching at Blackwell with at least _someone_ in my class." The smile doesn't reach his eyes, and that bothers Victoria for some reason, like he's downplaying it all without much success.

"I don't think _anyone's_ heard from Rachel today," Courtney says, thumbing through her old-looking phone with a purpose. "Nobody in the Vortex group chat saw her after photography yesterday."

"Thank you for letting me know, Courtney," Mr Jefferson says. He looks at her, raising an eyebrow. "But next time, _ask_ before using your smartphone in class."

Courtney goes red and mumbles a 'sorry' as she slides it away.

And that seems to be the final word on Rachel. "But full class or not, we still have an assignment to prepare for," Mr Jefferson says. "If you could all turn to chapter 30…"

Everyone does as he says, but nobody really pays attention. The class is punctuated with hushed whispers and the collective realisation that Rachel's been seen by no one for nearly twenty-four hours. Victoria feels an edge of something in the back of her mind, a unique kind of dread she doesn't dare give voice to.

Mr Jefferson starts listing critical responses to mid-Twentieth Century still life. It doesn't sink in at all, not when _Where's Rachel?_ is the sole thing consuming Victoria's thoughts.

Taylor gives her an uncomfortable look, then glances at Rachel's empty seat like it's painful to look at.

Evan's the only one that really contributes to the discussion; he says just enough with enough intelligence that Mr Jefferson overlooks how dumbstruck the rest of the class is. Rachel doesn't show up.

After what feels like the longest hour of Victoria's life, class ends and Mr Jefferson excuses himself without so much as a "see you tomorrow".

Before she even begins to pack her things away, Victoria has her phone out and is texting Nathan.

 **[04/23 – 16:02]  
VICTORIA: Can you BELIEVE this?  
VICTORIA: Rachel didn't show up to Mr Jefferson's class.  
VICTORIA: Like what the fuck? It was the only thing you could actually count on the slut to do.  
VICTORIA: Nobody's seen her today, either. Like at all. It's weird.  
VICTORIA: Maybe the skank finally decided to fuck off to LA to go die in a ditch with a needle in her arm.  
VICTORIA: Wouldn't that be something?**

She doesn't get a response. She doesn't really expect one, either. If Nathan's in one of his moods, it might be a good day or so before she hears anything.

"Nathan hear anything?" Taylor approaches Victoria with worry in her wide eyes. "It's just weird for Rachel to not, like, show up anywhere."

"Not my problem," Victoria says. "Maybe she'll fuck off for good." She doesn't really believe her own words.

"I'm kinda worried," Taylor says. "Something isn't right."

"I don't fucking care," Victoria lies. "If Rachel wants to disappear, let her." As she talks, she loads up the Vortex Club group chat and reads through last night's log with something akin to a stone dropping in her stomach.

 **[04/22 – 21:46]  
TAYLOR: lmfao hayden you can't just drop memes on us like that god  
COURTNEY: DYING  
HAYDEN: I can post that screaming goat Vine as many times as I want and nobody has the power to stop me ;)  
HAYDEN: I might even play it at the next party haha  
JULIET: You wouldn't dare!  
DANA: guys stop seriously i'm crying this is too funny  
ZACH: Werent we supposed to be plannin 4 the next party?  
HAYDEN: Dude.  
HAYDEN: Party's in two weeks. Plenty of time for that later.  
HAYDEN: No talking. Let the memes flow.  
TAYLOR: besides isn't it like rachel's turn to take charge?  
JULIET: According to the chart, yeah.  
DANA: we seriously have a chart lol?  
JULIET: There has to be *some* kind of order here.  
TAYLOR: so then rachel…  
TAYLOR: what awesome ideas you got?  
HAYDEN: She still online?  
ZACH: Profile says yeah  
COURTNEY: GIRL HELLO?  
COURTNEY: EARTH TO RACHEL?  
RACHEL: Yeah sorry guys  
RACHEL: I'll pass on this one  
TAYLOR: you can't just pass on vortex party planning.  
TAYLOR: that's like the cardinal rule of the vortex club  
RACHEL: I can't. Probably won't actually be there  
RACHEL: I'm sorry  
DANA: why?  
TAYLOR: finally heading off to la like you always joked about?  
HAYDEN: Or has Victoria finally decided whether or not she's gonna kill you or hatefuck you lmfao  
JULIET: Gross!  
HAYDEN: Not like u can deny it tho  
RACHEL: Can't talk about it  
RACHEL: I met someone who might change my life forever  
COURTNEY: YOU HAVE A MAN?  
DANA: u go girl!  
RACHEL: Gotta go  
RACHEL: Good luck with the party  
RACHEL: Bye  
[RACHEL is now offline!]  
TAYLOR: that was weird  
HAYDEN: She alright?  
JULIET: She's been weird and moody lately.  
JULIET: If she wants to blow us off, then she can suit herself.  
ZACH: So whos planning the party now?**

"She just blew off the Vortex Club?" Victoria says, somewhere between shock and rage. "Why would she do that? She _likes_ the Vortex Club."

Taylor only offers a shrug. "Nobody heard from her after that last message, Vic," she says, frowning. "I think something happened to her."

Victoria goes cold. "Don't say that," she says. "Besides, what the fuck could happen to someone in Arcadia fucking Bay? Frank and his dirty RV are the most dangerous things for us to worry about."

"I don't know," Taylor says. "I'm just worried. I hope we hear from her soon."

 _Me too._ "Whatever," Victoria says. "If Rachel Amber wants to make some bullshit attention-grab by worrying everyone, then fucking let her." She folds her arms, pretending like she isn't nearly worried sick. "Probably off on a bender or something. She'll turn up. She always does."

"Let's hope so," Taylor says. She glances at the clock. "I've got after-school tutoring in fifteen minutes; wanna join me for a smoke?"

"Sure, T," Victoria says. "God knows I could use one."

And that's the end of that conversation; not once does Rachel's name pass their lips as they head out through the hallways and stand in the parking lot to smoke just out of David Madsen's sight.

(In Victoria's head, however, she sets up an internal timer, counting the minutes since anyone last saw Rachel. She knows what happens to missing girls; _everyone_ knows what happens.

Rachel's face hovers like a ghost in Victoria's mind that she knows won't leave until she sees her in person again. She hopes it's soon.)

* * *

The End of the World happens on schedule. Not nearly as many people as we'd expected show up, but there's enough.

Taylor and I sit at one of the VIP section couches, alone. Nobody really tries to talk to us, not after Nathan and Jefferson.

"They blame us," Taylor says between sips of wine, after some first year no-name cheerleader looks at us like we're the devil incarnate.

"Of course they do,"I say, not quite bitter. "Everyone in the Vortex is an asshole who needs _someone_ to blame."

"Why not Nathan or Jefferson?"

"Because they're not here." I let out a sigh. "Because they can't give them backhanded compliments and then talk shit about them behind their backs."

Taylor leans back and closes her eyes for a few seconds as a deep crimson spiral swirls over her body, before illuminating a hastily scribbled _RIP RACHEL 3_ on the wall. "The Vortex Club sucks," she says finally.

"When hasn't it?" I reply. "We let Kate get roofied and fucking laughed at her." The wine loosens my thoughts, and I can't help spilling the next secret. "She was going to kill herself because of us."

"What?" Taylor says. She stiffens and there's something like alarm on her face.

"She was going to jump off the roof of the dorms," I say, feeling miserable. "God, that… that was _us_."

Taylor's crying a little. "We're awful," she says. "Kate went through… whatever shit they did to her, when we could have stopped her. _We could have helped_." She shudders and I pull her in for a hug before I realise what I'm doing.

"Don't," I say softly. " _Don't_." When Taylor doesn't respond, I run a hand through her hair, the motion feeling familiar even though it's the first time I've done it. "It's not your fault. You didn't _do_ anything wrong." She hiccups, a small shudder under my touch. " _I_ filmed the video. _I_ led the bullying against her." I have to swallow back the ball of emotion in my throat. "And _neither of us_ are responsible for what Jefferson and Nathan did."

At some point during this I start crying, too. It doesn't stop and I don't make any effort to stop it.

"I know," Taylor says softly. "It's just… everything's awful."

She leans on me. I let her. "You can say that again," I tell her.

"Victoria," she says. "Don't leave me. You're the only good thing left in this fucking academy and I don't want to lose it."

"I won't." It's more than a promise: it's a certainty with no room for alternatives. "I'm not leaving you, Taylor. Not now, not ever."

Taylor smiles through a sniffle and closes her eyes. We stay like this until the music dies down and the party begins to empty and the light from two moons shines in through the windows.

And for once, Rachel Amber's face doesn't dance behind my eyelids.

* * *

Rachel's posters begin to show up the day after she is formally declared a missing person. They were clearly made in a rush, using a web template, but Rachel's monochrome smile printed all over Arcadia Bay is both haunting and captivating.

Nobody really knows what to say or _do_ ; the Vortex Club awkwardly dances around the issue, like they can fill the void with enough petty squabbles and clique power plays. Mr Jefferson frowns and is upset at the appropriate times, but he still keeps teaching his classes as before, albeit with _something_ in his voice. The Blackwell faculty is caught in the complicated situation of not being allowed to discuss Rachel, but not knowing what it is about her they're not discussing.

Nathan hasn't showed up to school all week, not Jefferson's class, not the Vortex meetings. Nothing. If it weren't for the erratic texts Victoria would think he and Rachel are in the same place. Wherever she is.

When her posters first popped up, covering the halls like a desperate wallpaper, they'd all looked away brimming with guilt, unable to make eye contact with a ghost.

Rachel's blood is on everyone's hands, and they don't even know if she's dead or not.

She's the centre of attention in the worst possible way: there's no admiration or loathing, just a sickening _worry_ that tightens in Victoria's stomach with every passing hour Rachel remains gone.

Victoria sits on the bench by the lighthouse, overlooking the bay, and dimly wonders just how much of it is her fault. Going by the way that so many people looked at her as the police came and taped off Rachel's dorm room, maybe it is.

Rachel's parents had been on the local news last night, pleading for anyone with information about her whereabouts to _please please_ come forward. Victoria watched with something in her throat, wishing for answers she doesn't have, will probably never have.

Arcadia Bay is collapsing in on itself around a Rachel-shaped black hole, everyone crumpling under the implicit knowledge that they could have done more.

If Victoria hadn't been such a _bitch_ to Rachel, hadn't been so twisted with jealousy, would she still be here? Still walking the halls of Blackwell with her golden hair and her mysteriously beautiful smile?

She still hates her. That's the kicker; Rachel is _gone_ and part of Vitoria is _glad_ , even though it's nearly been three days and it's likely that Rachel's rotting in some shallow grave somewhere, because it means that Rachel is not _here_ , is not swallowing Victoria's presence with her sheer brilliance.

Victoria's now the best student in Mr Jefferson's class, the one he praises the most and uses as an example. It doesn't feel good. It feels like burying Rachel before she's gone, each compliment from Mr Jefferson and praise towards her photograph is another handful of soil, filling that hole more and more.

There are two possibilities for Rachel: either she'll let everyone know she's alive and living the dream in LA, or she'll show up as the subject of a true crime documentary, another tragedy for the world to gape at for an hour. Either way, she'll soon be forgotten, like a burnt out sun.

Victoria wants her back more than anything in the world, wants to walk into class tomorrow morning and see Rachel leaning against her desk with a dreamy expression, one hand on her little white camera and the other fiddling with her earring. She wants it with an ache in her chest that won't go until they _know_ where Rachel is.

It's enough to make Victoria want to scream to the ocean, to the golden hour framing the world in a glow like something out of a gallery piece. _Where is she?_

In this moment, time feels suspended in a few precious seconds, as if the world's uncertain of whether or not it can go on without Rachel's presence.

Victoria sighs, and tries to ignore the anger that dwells inside her, too. Rachel's name is on everyone's lips now, more than ever before. She's finally attained the celebrity she's always wanted and Victoria can't tell her to go fuck herself over it.

She can't tell Rachel anything.

The next breathe that comes from Victoria's lips hitches. It's not a sob; she won't _allow_ it to be a sob.

Her world's stopped, as if Rachel Amber was the component to keep it spinning, leaving only a painful stillness in her absence. It feels like it won't ever _start_ again, not until Rachel's back. If she comes back.

They all know that with every passing minute, the inevitable conclusion draws closer. How long until a wayward hiker finds her dumped in the woods? Or some Los Angeles officer reports up to Arcadia Bay that there's a body that looks identical to the girl plastered on every corner of this town?

Victoria opens her phone, checks Rachel's Facebook with something that's almost hope, almost desperation. Her icon's still dulled out, with the same condemning message written below her profile.

 _Last online April 22 at 21:46_.

It feels like another punch to the stomach.

People have left comments on her page, dozens of comments reading _where r u_ and _come back soon_ and _we miss you_.

There's a message from Rachel's mom on there, nestled between a message from Dana and one from one of those dirty skaters Rachel liked to hang out with. Victoria's body runs cold and her eyes mist up before she can do anything about it. She's crying, and she can't read it, but she can't look away either, can't close the page, can't do _anything_ but let the tide of grief swallow her.

(Until her phone buzzes with another message from Nathan reading _i dropped out from jeffersons class_ and Victoria's world spins and shatters again.)

* * *

The storm rolls in on Friday without so much as a warning. Dawn breaks, grey and muggy, and then it all strikes at once.

The winds rise, first blowing leaves and loose pieces of trash around, and then bikes and trash cans that weren't properly fastened down, and then the gusts hit the walls of Blackwell with enough power to make the building vibrate.

The TV in the dorm lounge is blaring with a severe weather warning that can't be turned off, the words _STATE OF EMERGENCY_ written across the screen with a gut-wrenching sense of foreboding.

We're all in the lounge, everyone having gathered soon after a dumpster slammed against the bathroom window. Only by some miracle did it not shatter the glass and send the force of a hurricane howling through the halls.

Then the rain starts lashing down, each drop feeling like the fist of a vengeful god, and it's only a little while after that that the lights start flickering and we all receive an emergency alert from Principal Wells telling us not to go outside under any circumstances.

"Maybe last night's Vortex party really _was_ cursed," Juliet says as she looks out the window with worry on her face. "It sure feels like the end of the world."

"Don't say that," Stella says, all but burying herself in her hoodie as she sits curled up on the sofa with Alyssa next to her, one hand on her shoulder.

Juliet barks a derisive laugh. "As if we'd be so lucky," she says. The window is streaked with rain and it's _dark_ outside, even though it's nearly ten in the morning and we're nowhere near winter.

Brooke frowns, scrolling through her phone like a madwoman. "This doesn't make sense," she says. "There was _no_ meteorological evidence for anything like this happening." She adjusts her glasses with the slightest tremble in her hands. "We should have _known_ something was coming."

"You mean like the snow? Or the eclipse? Or the moon thing?" Juliet counters.

"Something isn't right," Brooke says with an easy shrug that's clearly forced.

Thunder rumbles with the strength of an earthquake, and Taylor holds onto me like her life depends on it.

"It feels kinda biblical, right?" Dana says. She turns to Kate, who's quietly looking at the unchanging image on the TV. "Isn't there some kind of storm in the Bible or something?"

Kate nods. "Yes, but that was God's judgement to those who sinned against Him." She shakes her head. "But it was metaphorical rather than literal. It's supposed to represent how it feels inside to be evil, rather than an actual storm."

"Huh." Dana folds her arms. "So we don't need to worry about God coming down and, like, judging us all for our sins or something."

"Not at all," Kate says. Her smile seems to make Dana relax, just a little.

"Okay, God or freak of nature or whatever," Courtney says. "I just want it to be over."

"What I wouldn't give to be Max right now," Juliet says with a laugh. "I bet there's not some super storm in San Francisco."

Dana nudges her playfully. "Then maybe you should have worked harder for the Everyday Heroes competition."

"You know I'm a writer, not a photographer," Juliet replies with an eye roll.

A flash of lightning draws my attention to outside the window, where the rain now falls in thick enough a sheet that nothing can be seen out there. Until a shape manifests in the downpour and a soaked poster of Rachel Amber sticks itself to the window.

Dana notices. "I guess Rachel doesn't have to deal with this storm either, wherever she is," she says, her tone somewhere between playful and mournful.

"Hey," Juliet says. "You think if we sacrifice Nathan to the storm, it'll stop?"

"I wouldn't need a reason to throw him and Jefferson into the ocean," Brooke scoffs. "I mean, if you're willing to brave the storm and get them from the police station, then by all means go ahead."

I think of Nathan and Jefferson being thrown from the cliffs to the gaping maw of the ocean. The image doesn't give me comfort, but it doesn't disgust me, either.

"Maybe this storm _is_ our divine punishment for letting those sick fucks get away with it for so long," Juliet says. Kate suddenly looks ill.

I feel a ball of nausea clog my own throat. Taylor seems to notice, and turns to face me with a soft expression. "Hey, Vic, are you—"

"I'm okay," I tell her, my voice shaky for reasons I can't adequately describe in this room. "I'll be okay."

Then the TV screen display changes and a new voice sounds out and everything is decidedly _not_ okay.

" _THIS IS NOT A TEST. THIS IS NOT A TEST. AN E6 TORNADO WARNING HAS BEEN ISSUED FOR ARCADIA BAY AND SURROUNDING COUNTIES. THE EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM IS NOW IN EFFECT. EVACUATE OR TAKE SHELTER IMMEDIATELY._ "

"A-an E6…" Brooke says. "That's… that shouldn't be…" She looks genuinely afraid. "The scale only goes to E5."

There's a moment of silence, punctuated by the drone of the emergency alert and the lashing of the rain on the windows.

"What does that mean, exactly?" Stella asks.

"E5 is total destruction of buildings," Brooke explains. "An E5 tornado can level towns in under an hour. A theoretical E6 would be twice as powerful and destroy twice as much twice as fast."

"Jesus," Alyssa says.

"We should… we should evacuate somewhere, or something," Dana says, voice breaking. "We can't—"

"There's _no time_ ," Brooke stresses. She looks like she's stared into the face of the apocalypse. Her phone hangs in her hands. "The water spout is less than half a mile out into the bay. It'll make landfall in a matter of minutes."

"We're going to die," Juliet says, hollow. Alyssa starts crying.

I look away, back to the window. Rachel's poster is gone, lost to the storm. _Guess I'll be joining you_ , I think with panic blossoming in my chest.

There's another moment where despair rolls over us, with half the girls in here crying, Kate Marsh praying in silence, and Taylor standing next to me, looking listlessly at the floor.

And then, with a sudden, horrible clarity, I know what I have to do.

"I'm going," I say to Taylor, who's only half-listening. "Goodbye, T."

She doesn't respond. I don't know if that makes it better or worse.

I slip out unnoticed in the slowly rising hysteria, and make my way down the hall before I can change my mind.

The walk towards the staircase passes by too quickly for my liking; the building feels empty as I move through the silence. Nobody's there to stop me as I begin my ascent, slipping through doors that should otherwise be restricted and climbing higher up a narrow staircase that rattles in the wind.

When I reach the top, my legs suddenly stop moving, and I'm left staring at a door that rattles and shudders with each pounding gale.

I could turn back right now, slink back to the lounge and wait out the end with Taylor and pray that it doesn't come to pass.

But then I see Nathan and Rachel's faces in my mind's eye, and I stride forward and push the door to the rooftop open, and the wind hits me like a punch from the universe itself.

It's cold, much colder than I thought it would be, hail like shards of glass enfolded within the vortex of the wind and rain, feeling like it's tearing at my sweater with every step.

My hair flies in every which direction and already the rooftop is covered in an ankle-deep puddle that only seems to be rising. A distant part of my mind wonders whether the tornado will destroy the building, or if it will collapse under the weight of the water, first.

Another step and the wind's enough to rip my necklace off, small beads flying around in the air and then disappearing. I start shivering but don't stop, inching closer and closer to the edge.

The sky lights up and lightning strikes nearby. Below, the Tobanga burns.

In the distance, the trees shake and bend and snap, visible only in second-long snippets here and there. The scent of burning hangs in the air, blowing in from somewhere impossible to tell.

Then there's an awful _crack_ like the world's been torn in two and the tornado is _right there_ , a colossal and hungry vortex bearing down on Blackwell academy like a vengeful deity.

I do not tremble as I lift my phone out and press 'record' and look at it through my lens, feeling the sublime hum in the atmosphere, a static charge you can feel on your skin.

In another time, another place, this lens was pointed at the Blackwell rooftop in the pouring rain with life and death breathing through every moment. The memories bleed through like two photographs merging together, every choice and every possibility collapsing into this one moment.

The storm moves forward.

My feet are planted on the ground, until they aren't and the rooftop is a distant object lost to the chaos. I keep my gaze through the lens of the camera, providing me with a clarity I have never experienced before in my life. It's the sum of my life, of everyone's lives, presented in acute detail through an artistic and divine whirlwind.

I let out a breath.

The Vortex claims me. And, here, in the eye of the storm, the universe dies.

Time splinters and rends and tears like the jaws of a vicious animal. Somewhere along the way, I lose Arcadia Bay to the screams and the colours. My own body shatters and fractures and breaks and then _isn't._

I find myself thrown into a moment where Time is no more. There is emptiness and silence here, but the moment itself breaks me down, strips me of my colours and replaces every moving molecule with static pain.

Everything bleeds into white and I am swallowed, whole and in fragments.

* * *

It's in the quiet moment between shutting the trunk of her car and lighting up a cigarette that Victoria notices Nathan's arrival. He walks down the stairs to the parking lot with a jitter to his step, eyes wide and red-rimmed.

It's the first time she's been alone with him for months, since Rachel Amber up and vanished, really.

Summer is in full force, hot enough to make you sweat just by standing around, but Nathan still wears his thick red jacket, hands in his pockets. "Victoria," he says shakily, stopping a few feet before her. He looks brittle, Victoria thinks. "I wanted to talk to you. Before you left for the summer, I mean."

Victoria breathes out smoke and feels a dull something in her chest. The walls and trees around them are coated in Rachel's missing person posters, perfectly clear despite it being nearly two months since she up and vanished.

"Sure," she says. "Seattle can wait a little longer." She has no love for the cold and clinical city, the distant way her parents dance around her and scrutinise her every move like she's a living submission to the Chase Space.

Nathan closes the distance between them, leaning against Victoria's car with a forced easiness. He doesn't look _well_ , and that thought sticks in Victoria's throat more than anything else. "What a shitty year," he says, looking at the sky.

"You dropped Mr Jefferson's class," she says. It's official, now, in a way that his text all those weeks ago wasn't; Mr Jefferson had told her when he issued out the class lists and schedules for next year. At first she'd thought he'd been moved to class A like Courtney and Evan, but his name wasn't on her list, either.

The only two left from the original class B are Victoria and Taylor. The rest are transfers from the much larger class A, including Hayden, that quiet church girl Kate Marsh, and some other students who decided to specialise in photography going forward rather than general art studies.

And in the final slot, where Victoria had half-expected to see Rachel's name, was a new and unfamiliar one. _Maxine Caulfield_. Some transfer student who was lucky enough to be selected to take the empty space Rachel left behind.

Victoria knows nothing about this girl, but already she can only think of her as _Rachel's replacement_ with an emotion that will grow into resentment in due time.

"So did Luke Parker," Nathan says lazily.

"He transferred to the music class," Victoria says. "You're the only one that just _dropped_ a class."

Nathan stiffens. "Are you just gonna lecture me about my choices?" he says. "I came here to hang out with you one last time before summer break, _not_ listen to you repeat what my dad and Jeffershit already fucking told me. Fuck both of them."

"It's just, I thought—"

"What, Victoria?" Nathan looks at her. A challenge.

 _I thought we would be together._ "Nothing," she says instead. Takes another drag of her cigarette, harsh enough that she very nearly starts coughing. "Just thought my best friend would keep me more in the loop."

"I did," Nathan says.

"I meant more than just one shitty text," Victoria says with an irritation she can't swallow back. "I thought you'd talk to me about it, first."

"Why?" Nathan asks. "It's not your fucking business, Victoria."

It stings like a knife to her stomach. "Because I care about you?" she eventually replies. "Because I don't wanna see you throw your future away?"

Nathan doesn't meet her eyes. "Not your problem."

He's right, and that's what hurts. Victoria's prying, she has no right to pry, but she can't stop. "You would've told Rachel Amber," she says, regretting the words immediately after they leave her mouth.

"Fuck you," Nathan says, standing. He normally slouches, so to see him stand straight a couple of inches above Victoria suddenly makes her feel small. "You don't get to say that."

Victoria bristles with anger and hurt. "Why the fuck not?" she says. "That bitch isn't even here and she's still the only thing people care about." There might be tears forming in the corners of her eyes. There might not be. It doesn't matter. She doesn't _care_. "I saw the way you looked at her."

Nathan's eyebrows go up and something minute shifts in his expression. "You were _jealous_?" he asks, looking genuinely surprised.

Victoria's throat goes dry and she doesn't have an answer. She _can't_ answer.

Nathan suddenly sobers up. "Shit," he says. "I didn't… I didn't know you…"

"It doesn't matter," Victoria says with a dismissive hand wave. "I… shouldn't have said that."

"You shouldn't have, yeah," Nathan agrees, a curdling sort of vindication that is sour on Victoria's tongue. He changes his stance. "Your birthday's in a few weeks."

"It is," Victoria says.

"You doing anything?" Nathan asks, barely a shade above polite disinterest. It's the most condemning kind of small-talk.

"I don't know," she replies. "It's nearly two months away."

"Right," Nathan says, like he forgot this fact. "I won't see you until September."

"Mm," Victoria agrees.

"I, uh, I got you something," Nathan says, reaching into his bag. He pulls out a gift-wrapped cardboard box. "Here."

Victoria accepts it. "Thanks." She puts her cigarette out and goes to open it.

Nathan stops her by placing a hand on her own. "Don't," he says, more focused and serious than she's seen him in ages. "Wait until your birthday, please."

Victoria lets out a breath, looks at him with an ache, then leans back. "Okay, okay," she says. "I'll wait."

Nathan smiles at that, a rare and precious sight that Victoria wants to photograph. Then his phone buzzes and his expression changes yet again. "I'll, uh, see you in September."

"I suppose," Victoria says, her heart feeling heavy.

"See you later, Vic," Nathan says.

"Bye, Nate," Victoria replies, and then Nathan is turning away from her, walking back to the emptiness of Blackwell. She watches him go until he vanishes around a corner in the lazy summer air and already feels his absence like a finality.

Things will never be as they were before. It's all different, changed in a way Victoria can't hope to alter.

She feels Rachel Amber's eyes on her as she opens up her car and puts Nathan's gift in the back before climbing into the driver's seat herself, a presence that weighs down on her until she's out of Arcadia Bay and driving up the highway towards Seattle.

On the passenger's seat is a stack of papers, each one a slightly blurry photocopy of Rachel Amber's face. Victoria gets into Seattle that evening. The next day, Rachel's poster is on display on the front of the Chase Space, and the day after that, she starts popping up all over the city.

(Victoria's birthday comes and goes, and Nathan's present remains unopened. She never unwraps the paper, never breaks the box's seal, keeps it in a permanent state of paradox. A million million possibilities exist within that box, and Victoria doesn't have stomach to collapse it into one.

Schrödinger's gift. Schrödinger's Rachel. The parallels don't escape her.)

* * *

Reality snaps back into place with a sickening shudder, the ocean of memories and what-ifs draining away until all that's left is me and the softly flickering lights of the Dark Room.

My wrists and ankles are bound. It takes me several moments to remember why, for the fear to come back in a rising chorus.

I look to the empty chair next to me, harsh under the scrutiny of too many spotlights. Max is not here. She's gone.

Maybe she was never really here. Maybe none of this is real. What does it matter either way? Rachel is dead and Nathan is dead and I am _nothing_.

"Victoria."

I snap my head up, too quickly. My vision swims for a beat too long, and when the world comes into focus Mark Jefferson stands above me, wet hair and adorned in a waterproof jacket and rubber gloves.

 _Rachel in the Dark Room. Victoria in the Dark Room._ I nearly throw up.

"J…Jefferson…?" I say, weak, throat raw and burning like I had something in my mouth for far too long. The lights are beginning to give me a headache. "Where's… Where's Max?"

"Max," Jefferson says, something like triumph in his tone. "Where Max is doesn't matter. It's just you and me, Victoria."

There's something about his expression, his posture that tips me off, sends the survival part of my mind into overdrive and the rest of me into icy dread.

"Are you going to kill me?"

"Yes, Victoria, I am." There's no emotion to it. Just a statement of the facts. "Our session together is done."

I whimper. "Please…" I beg, feeling weak, too weak to break my confines, to escape. "Please, don't… I'll do anything you want, just _don't…_ "

Emotion congeals in my throat and I can't talk, can't do anything but weep softly.

"Don't weep," Jefferson says, crouching down to eye level to _look_ at me. "If it wasn't me, the storm would have taken you anyway."

 _Storm…?_ Memories from somewhere else, somewhere dreamlike tickle the edges of my subconscious.

"You should be glad." He's lifting me up. "Tonight you have been _immortalised_ , Victoria. Your image, your corrupted _purity_ will survive long after your body has rotted away."

I try to struggle, squirming in a final effort to break free. I'm rewarded with a prick in my neck that makes the universe spin and swirl and blur out of focus until it could be anything.

"It _has_ been a pleasure."

And the world bleeds into white, into nothing.

* * *

 _Miss Victoria Chase,_

 _It is my pleasure to let you know that your application to Blackwell Academy has been accepted. Blackwell has a long-standing history of producing alumni who excel in the arts and sciences, and it it our sincerest wish to extend these opportunities to you._

 _Enclosed are the reading lists for your specialised subject of choice. If you believe you are entitled to financial aid and have not yet applied, please follow the instructions on our website for further information._

 _Move-in dates are August 29 and August 30 2012, and orientation weekend is from August 31 to September 1 2012. Please check the enclosed documents for further information re: accommodation and orientation schedules._

 _I hope to see you in September,_

 _Principal Raymond Wells_.

"Congratulations," Victoria's mother utters with genuine pride on her face.

"Thank you," Victoria replies, beaming too hard to adopt the pretence of professionalism. "I can't believe it. I got accepted onto _Mark Jefferson's_ course."

"You worked hard for it," her father says. "You deserve the reward for your efforts."

"If you need help with anything, just let us know," her mother says, and for once the Chase family living room actually feels _warm_.

"It's just… things are going to be so much better for me now," Victoria says, a selfish kind of pleasure that she has earned.

"Maybe," her mother says. "And perhaps your work will one day reside in our gallery."

"Let's hope so," Victoria adds. "I can't wait to see what happens."

"Me neither," her father says, a rare grin on his face, too. "Your future holds a lot of promise, Victoria: take advantage of it all and chase your ambition. We'll be rooting for you."

 _My future_. Once, that would have filled Victoria with a unique kind of dread, but here and now, it's a promise, an opportunity, a confirmation that things will be _different_ , that she'll be something more than just another Seattle artist's daughter. She will _matter_.

The future is _hers_ and she reaches toward it with pure confidence and unfiltered ambition, a single thought echoing out, embedding itself in her core as an unshakeable foundation like an unfailing mantra of strength.

 _I will be great._

* * *

The rain is cold on my face. Maybe that's what wakes me up.

My eyes open to sheets of freezing water pouring down from a dark sky and pine trees trembling in the thunder. Gingerly, I stretch an arm out and feel the forest's soggy under-grow beneath my fingers. It's solid and tactile and the sea air feels more _real_ than anything has in a long time.

I'm lying on my stomach in a shallow, hastily-dug pit that acts as the barest buffer against the winds. In an attempt to orient myself, I lift my head up with a strength I haven't had since last night, enough that it sends a shock of surprise through my waking body.

Jefferson's voice rings out from somewhere in front of me, far enough away that my brain registers it as _not here_. My limbs are unbound. Hope springs in my throat and it takes all my willpower not to let out a noise.

"Yes, that's right, but…" Jefferson's on the phone to someone, somewhere up ahead among the trees. I can't see him and he can't see me. I give it a few more seconds, daring to believe.

"Okay, okay, but I'm doing something right now…" If I strain to hear, I can make out the slosh of dress shoes against the waterlogged forest floor. It's a chance, an opening.

 _I will not die here._

Rachel may be dead, _Nathan_ may be dead, but I am not. I am alive, and I intend to stay that way.

I wait for Jefferson to start talking again, and then with adrenaline-fuelled strength, push myself up to my feet, and scramble out of the ditch in the opposite direction to his voice.

My heart is in my throat as I start moving through the trees, shivering out of cold and out of terror, and I will myself not to look back.

I don't know where I am, but it doesn't _matter._ Getting away from Jefferson is the priority, and everything else pales in comparison. _I will not die._

There's a shocked shout from somewhere behind me and I bite down on my tongue to stop myself from screaming. The mixture of adrenaline and leftover drugs is making me feel faint, but I can't stop. If I stop I'm dead.

The icy rain stings against my face, but it's keeping me alert, keeping me going as I stumble through this nightmare. The sky rumbles with the force of an apocalypse, unsurprising in the worst kind of way.

"Where'd you _go_?!" Jefferson shouts, too close, too close. _No no no…_

I make a sharp turn left, crouch low past a dense bunch of foliage, then start sprinting once I've cleared it. _Get out of here, Victoria. Go. Don't fucking stop_.

Another shout and I make another sudden turn. He's definitely pursuing me now, relentless in a way that begins to make me worry that I won't be able to shake him, not when he's bigger and stronger and hasn't endured twelve hours in the Dark Room.

 _Rachel in the Dark Room._

I reach a break in the trees, dart forward, and come to a stop at the cliff's edge. Below me is the ocean, pitch-black and swelling with a kind of divine rage. In the distance, a tornado looms, growing taller and wider by the second. _I'm trapped_.

The sob that comes from my mouth is silent. I manage that much.

From somewhere, the sun begins to rise, dim and barely piercing the clouds, but enough to paint the world in a soft, golden amber.

I blink with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat as I look out over the vast waters.

It's _beautiful_ , so, so beautiful. It's a scene that belongs in the finest of galleries, a photograph brought to life, the meeting of black and white, colour and monochrome, land and sea and sky, life and death.

The bushes behind me rustle. _Look at it. Keep looking at it._

There's a _bang_ and my chest is on fire. _Don't look away_.

I fall forward.

 _It's okay, Victoria_ , says a voice that is both Nathan and Rachel at once, comforting and familiar and inviting.

The wind is cool against my face as I fall. Blood chokes out from my mouth, red droplets in the sky, a kind of picturesque image that will never be seen with a photographer's eyes.

 _Snap_ and a camera goes off somewhere greater than here and I am not falling, I am not dying, I am a subject in this great and terrible photograph to be memorialised by forces bigger than myself.

It's a picture in an album that bleeds and blends against itself, a uniquely beautiful bifurcation that I am as much a part of as I am a witness.

The universe branches. Two paths are before me.

 _Victoria_ , says Rachel Amber.

 _Victoria_ , says Nathan Prescott.

The reality behind me splinters, cracks, and shatters, and the realities before me are both mine, both my paths to walk, one the deep red of a jacket and the other the warm blue of a feather.

It's light and dark and everything in-between, all the infinite possibilities and beginnings that come after the end, limitless and free, an image that sprawls beyond the picture, beyond the camera's lens, beyond everything that came before this moment of singularity that drips with the potential of creation itself. It's here that I stand, on this precipice between two decisions, two existences, two endings.

I make my choice and begin to walk.


End file.
